England captain Eoin Morgan has admitted that the 2015 World Cup loss to New Zealand was one of the lowest points of his career.

England had a disastrous campaign in 2015, as they lost heavily to Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, with their only wins coming against Afghanistan and Scotland.

On the eve of his team’s clash against the same opposition in the 2019 edition, which England need to win to keep qualification for the semi-finals in their own hands, Morgan said that he had hit rock bottom after the defeat to New Zealand.

“It was as close to rock bottom as I’ve been,” Morgan said. “Certainly as a captain and as a player, being beaten off the park like that is humiliating.

New Zealand’s performance in the 2015 World Cup made for one of the most inspiring stories of the tournament, as Brendon McCullum’s team captured the imagination of an entire nation with their aggressive game.

England were blown away by a career-best 7-33 from Tim Southee, which sent them packing for 123. McCullum then flattened them with a 25-ball 77 as New Zealand sealed the chase in just 12.2 overs.

The dominance shown by New Zealand in that match encapsulated the kind of cricket they brought to the table, as they showed that teams could be aggressive and attacking and still play fair and endear themselves to the fans.

“The influence throughout the whole World Cup on all the other teams was quite extreme,” Morgan said of New Zealand’s brand of cricket. “New Zealand proved a point that you can actually be really good humans and grow the game and play cricket in your own way, and win at the same time, which is incredibly eye-opening for a lot of countries around the world. I thought that rubbed off on everybody.”

Speaking of the current tournament, Morgan said that batting first would continue to be the way to go, despite England’s track record of chasing down targets over the last four years.

“Just accepting that the wickets haven’t been as good as they have been in the last four years has changed that,” Morgan said.

“Every wicket that we’ve played on so far has been tougher to bat on in the second innings, regardless of whether we’ve won or not. Even the games I’ve watched on TV, it’s been tougher in the second innings.”

Morgan also reflected on the change in attitude in the dressing room that enabled them to put behind some stinging defeats to beat India and stay alive in the competition.

“It was clear that after the Australia game, there was a huge amount of disappointment in the changing room,” he said.

“The fact that we’ve been able to turn that around, identify where we are at and what we need to do in order to progress to the semis made things clear about how we want to continue to play, which hasn’t changed… it’s been effective.”

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