England limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan said on Thursday that his team’s use of information provided by an analyst through coded signals during the course of the match is “100 per cent within the spirit of the game”.
During the recently-concluded T20I series against South Africa, England’s analyst Nathan Leamon was seen by the broadcasters with two clipboards, one with a number on a sheet and the other with a letter.
Morgan was also spotted running towards the analyst in the dugout. In an interaction with the media on the eve of the first ODI, the England white-ball skiper said that it is a system he is using to compare decision-making on the field with that of those made with “hard data”.
“For me, this is a system that we’re going to use to try and help myself and the other leaders in the side, to take the emotion of the decision-making on the field and compare that to the hard data that is continuing to feed data into us, and the guys off the field,” said Morgan.
“Hundred per cent within the spirit of the game. There’s nothing untoward about it. It’s about maximising information that we’re taking in, and measuring it against things (like) coaches’ recommendations, the data, what’s going on. We’re definitely going to continue with it, and give it enough of a sample size to see if it makes a difference to, or improves, our decision-making on the field or our performance.”
Morgan said that the decisions made on the field did not vary too much with the data that was being signalled. “There weren’t many decisions that varied: I think there were three in the first game, two in the second game, and a couple in the third. It’s nice to know that the majority of the decisions that myself, Jos and the bowlers on the field were making actually replicate what we feel is right in the game,” he said.
Former captain Michael Vaughan wrote in his column for the Daily Telegraph that there is “absolutely no chance” he would have engaged with an analyst during a game while he was leading.
“Captains are different,” Morgan said. “You get captains that really enjoy the title, the power and the accolades that go with it, and then you have other captains that continue to be pushed and want to learn for the benefit of the team.”