Winning IPL with KKR was a confidence booster, says Eoin Morgan
Captain of England in Sri Lanka. Captain of Kerala Knights in the second edition of the T10 League in Sharjah. International marquee player for Tshwane Spartans in the inaugural Mzansi Super League.
Doing all of that is hard enough but to do that in less than two months just highlights how packed the schedule of a modern cricketer who predominantly plays T20s is. No one understands this better than Eoin Morgan, who admits that not everyone acknowledges the amount of time away from home that a cricketer spends and how difficult that is.
Extra Cover: Eoin Morgan credits 2015 World Cup for England's ODI turnaround
The 32-year-old spoke to Sportskeeda at the sidelines of the Mzansi Super League about his packed schedule, his experience of playing in the IPL for two different title-winning sides, how he adapts in playing in different formats in different countries and what most fans don't see about the modern cricketer.
What is the one thing about being an international cricketer that most people don’t see?
The amount of time that you spend away from home. People don’t see that, everybody thinks that it is great. It is great but everybody sees you go to these glamorous countries, playing the sport that you love and doing it for a living but the amount of time we spend away from home is extremely challenging and that is probably one thing they don't see.
What are your thoughts on the inaugural Mzansi Super League?
The league has made a really good impression on me. It has been faultless. The big positive for me is that one it is creating opportunities for younger players to come through who won't necessarily have the opportunity to play against the best players in the world or alongside South African international players. I think that strengthens the league, having those international players playing. So that is one big positive. The other is that it is televised on free to air TV. Creating that platform where you can expose cricket to millions of people, who wouldn't normally watch it because it was on paid TV, I think that is huge.
How much of an impact has playing in different T20 leagues had on your game?
It has actually had a big impact playing in these different leagues because it creates a different expectation. When you play international cricket, you play with the best players in your country against the best in other countries but being one of a handful or one of two overseas players (depending on different tournaments), there is a lot more expectation on your shoulders to perform regularly and that is really good for anybody's game. It poses different challenges as a cricketer and I think that's really good.
You have been part of several IPL sides and also won the tournament. How do you describe your experience?
The first year we won it at Kolkata was awesome. I was a lot younger and still learning a lot about my game. So being exposed to and playing the latter stages of such a big tournament really did give me a lot of confidence. The second time at Hyderabad, there was a couple of reasons we won it. David Warner had one of the best IPL seasons of his life and the bowling line-up we had was the best in the competition. So in skill level, we were superior to any of the other teams.