England captain Eoin Morgan on Tuesday became the first male player from his country to play 100 T20 international matches. His 100th T20I turned out to be special as Jos Buttler powered England to a thumping eight-wicket win in the third T2OI at the Narendra Modi Stadium here.
Man-of-the-match Buttler paid tribute to his skipper saying, “What a special achievement it is to play 100 matches and what he (Morgan) has done for English white-ball cricket — Eoin’s taken our white-ball cricket fortunes to a completely new place we’ve never been before.”
Morgan, 34, is the fourth male player overall to reach 100 appearances in T20 internationals. Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik holds the record for most appearances in T20Is with 116 after whom comes India’s Rohit Sharma, who played his 109th match on Tuesday. New Zealand’s Ross Taylor is just above Morgan with 102 appearances.
Morgan has scored 2,306 T20I runs at an average of 30.34 with 14 half-centuries. He could add to his career tally in the last two T20Is. England need to win just one of those to seal the series.
The left-handed batsman has also been a towering leader for England in the ODI format, leading them to the 2019 World Cup win at home.