Sports

Eoin Morgan’s birthday today

Today is the birthday of Eoin Joseph Gerard Morgan, an Irish cricketer and captain of the England national cricket team in One Day Internationals and Twenty 20 International.A left-handed batsman, he plays county cricket for Middlesex and has been selected for England’s Test, ODI and Twenty20 squads. He originally represented his native Ireland at international level before switching to play for England. He was the first and is one of the only two players in history to score an ODI hundred for two nations and is particularly noted for his end of innings hitting ability, seeing him labelled as a ‘finisher’. He is also noted as being a skilful player of the reverse sweep shot.After Alastair Cook was removed from the ODI captaincy on 19 December 2014, Morgan was named as the England captain for the 2015 Cricket World Cup. He had already captained England in ODIs against Ireland, Australia and Sri Lanka and in T20Is against India. Morgan was born in Dublin and educated at the Catholic University School on Leeson Street, where he won three senior cup titles for the school. In his early teens Morgan played hurling twice a week and this helped develop his skills as a batsman, particularly as the grip for hurling is the same as for the reverse sweep. During this time he also briefly attended Dulwich College to further his cricketing education and it was here that his ambition to play for England began. Morgan represented Ireland’s youth teams and was capped at Under-15 and Under-17 level. He was selected in the Irish Under-19 squad for the 2004 Under-19 World Cup, and was Ireland’s top run-scorer in the competition.Two years later, he captained Ireland in the 2006 Under-19 World Cup where he finished as the second-highest overall run-scorer. He also plays for Finchley CC.