England’s Eoin Morgan on Monday broke the record for most wins by a captain in T20I history. Morgan surpassed the legendary India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Afghanistan’s Asghar Afghan in registering the most number of wins by a captain in men’s T20 Internationals during his team’s win against Sri Lanka at the ongoing World Cup in UAE.
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England defeated Sri Lanka by 26 runs at the Sharjah International Cricket Stadium to virtually seal a semifinal spot at the T20 World Cup.
Morgan now has 43 wins from 68 T20I matches he led England, while Dhoni — who retired last year - won 42 matches out of 72 he played as India skipper. Afghan, who retired from all formats on Sunday after the match against Namibia, had captained Afghanistan to 42 wins out of 52 games.
Batting first, England posted a challenging 163/4 thanks to a sparkling century from opener Jos Buttler. And then a combined bowling display saw Sri Lanka being bowled out for 137 in 19 overs.
“I am incredibly proud of everything we have done tonight," Morgan said during the post-match presentation. “The guys had to fight incredibly hard. Conditions here continued to change, Tymal (Mills) going out (due to injury) asked another question of ourselves. But (Liam) Livingstone and Moeen (Ali) stepped up exceptionally well with the other guys. I can’t fault our guys tonight."
Morgan himself returned to form hitting a solid 40 off 36. “You always got to believe, I always do. Today was a tougher test. We were enjoying ourselves. Just to get a partnership going and put something on the board to defend," he said.
England continue to lead Group 1 having won all their four matches so far to collect eight points and boast a net run-rate of 3.183. They will face South Africa in their fifth and final group match on Saturday.
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