Published 16:32 IST, December 2nd 2020
England skipper Eoin Morgan receives coded information on field from the dressing room
English skipper Eoin Morgan had received coded information from the dressing room by the team analyst during the 3rd T20I against South Africa on Monday
Advertisement
The Eoin Morgan-led English side have had a good tour of South Africa so far as they managed to whitewash the hosts in the three-match T20I series. However, Morgan was involved in something that has not been heard of on the cricket field during the third and final T20I at the Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town on Monday night.
Eoin Morgan gets coded information from the English analyst
This happened during the first innings of the contest while the visitors were fielding. The English team's analyst Nathan Leamon was seen sending a piece of coded information to the 2019 World Cup-winning skipper from the dressing room during the course of the game. However, what really stood out here is that series of letters and numbers were hung from the balcony of the current top-ranked T20I side The information was a combination of a letter and number i.e. 4E.
While it did create a lot of confusion initially, England's star limited-overs wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler decoded it during the post-match session. The elegant middle-order batsman explained that it was just a little bit of an experiment.
“It’s a little help, a suggestion, and what match-ups are going on. Eoin and Nathan work closely on analysis. It’s just a little bit of an experiment. Eoin is one of the best captains in the world, a fantastic, instinctive captain, and there’s a nice balance going on,” said Buttler while speaking to BBC.
England whitewash the Proteas
Coming back to the contest, South African skipper Quinton de Kock won the toss and decided to bat first. At one stage, it appeared as if the Proteas would suffer a batting collapse after being reduced to 64/3 in the 10th over but veteran Faf du Plessis (52) and Rassie van der Dussen (74)'s quickfire knocks in the middle-order helped the hosts post a stiff total of 191/3 from their 20 overs.
In reply, the visitors crossed the line without breaking a sweat riding on opener Dawid Malan's unbeaten 99 and Jos Buttler's unbeaten 46-ball 67 to take an unassailable 3-0 lead. The 2009 T20 world champions have now achieved the 'Numero Uno' spot in the ICC T20I Rankings.
Image credit: ICC Twitter
16:31 IST, December 2nd 2020