Captain Eoin Morgan believes “a little bit of naivety” could work in England’s favour at the World Twenty20 in India.
The 29-year-old has made 56 appearances in the sprint format and is familiar with Indian conditions thanks to his IPL experience, but only two other members of his 15-man squad – Alex Hales and Jos Buttler – have more than 15 T20 international caps and several have yet to play in India.
Morgan’s young side arrived in Mumbai in Tuesday and he expects them to embrace “a different challenge”.
“Not only have a lot of our guys never played in the IPL, a lot of our guys have never been to India before,” he said.
“But I think sometimes having that experience – particularly in India where a lot of teams come here, including us, and get hammered – can almost scar your perceptions and (affect your) play in the tournament.
“Having a little bit of naivety along with a huge amount of talent isn’t a bad thing.”
England have enjoyed a good year in limited-overs cricket since the disappointing performance in last year’s 50-over World Cup, although they ended a long tour of South Africa with five straight defeats.
Morgan was still happy with the way his team went about their cricket despite those losses and insisted that run of form will not be playing on the players’ minds when the tournament gets under way.
“I’m reasonably confident about things,” Morgan added. “Before the South Africa series we had a really good run of things; we’ve seen in the group we have a lot of talent and a lot of match-winners.
“It didn’t necessarily happen in South Africa and one of the things after that trip that we talked about was, ‘Are we still playing in the right way? Are we being beaten in the right manner, doing the things we said we’d do?’ And I think we are. The attitude in the group is still of a really positive mindset and that’s very important coming into this tournament.
“I would say we’re the most expressive we’ve been for a long time. We’ve a lot of talent and we encourage our players to go out and be as brash and aggressive as they can and take the game to the opposition.”
Today marks 12 months since England’s group-stage exit from the World Cup was confirmed by defeat to Bangladesh in Adelaide – and Morgan admitted the pain of his first experience as a captain in a major tournament drives him on.
“It will always be there, that World Cup,” he said.
“Going through such a significant loss and such a down period in your career really does make you enjoy any success you have down the line.
“It’s been quite a significant factor in the turnaround we’ve had, the different attitudes, the different group of players and to a certain extent the results we’ve had.
“Not necessarily just that day against Bangladesh, but as a whole trip. It was a huge learning curve for me, particularly as a captain.”
England take on New Zealand in a warm-up match on Saturday as they step up their preparations for their opening Group One fixture against the West Indies next Wednesday.
Source: ECB