Gazi Tank Cricketers are hoping their underperforming English cricketer Eoin Morgan will produce a Neil Fairbrother act and in their last match against Prime Doleshwar and land them their first ever Dhaka Premier League title. The Irish-born Morgan has done little justice to his billing as a top-class cricketer, scoring only 70 runs in his first four games, and another failure against Prime Doleshwar could easily cost his team the title.
Gazi and Doleshwar are currently level at the top of the table – with each side on 20 points – which means the winners on Thursday will take the crown.
Gazi, easily the most expensive side in the league, had hoped that the acquisition of Morgan would be the difference in their title pursuit, but his continued failure has already raised questions about whether the club made the right decision in bringing in an out-of-form cricketer.
Morgan’s struggles have taken some long-time followers of the DPL on a trip down memory lane, finding similarities between Morgan and Fairbrother, who had a stint with Abahani Krira Chakra in the 1993-94 season.
Abahani had flown Fairbrother over from Lancashire with high hopes only to be met with disappointment in the league phase as he failed to produce the kind of performance the club was looking for.
Fairbrother fared much better than Morgan in the first three games, making 25, 47 and 41, but failed miserably in his last two innings with scores of 4 and 0 to make his place in the playing XI for the crucial last game doubtful.
However, the diminutive left-hander stood tall and played a brilliant knock of 90 runs at the Bangabandhu National Stadium to help Abahani clinch the championship by defeating arch-rivals Mohammedan.
‘I think it will be a Fairbrother case with Morgan,’ Gazi Tanks coach Sarwar Imran said on Tuesday.
‘Probably he is saving the runs for the big occasion.’
Morgan has looked ordinary in the league so far, with spinners in particular making his life difficult.
Morgan had also appeared ordinary in his seven previous international matches for Ireland and England on Bangladesh soil, managing just one fifty and one dubious hundred.
His unbeaten 110, which helped England seal a thrilling win over Bangladesh in 2010, came after a questionable decision by an umpire, who turned down a clear lbw appeal with the batsman on still 13.
Considering his struggles on Bangladesh’s low and slow wickets, Gazi’s decision to pay him $5000 per match has been viewed as a bad move by many keen followers of Bangladesh domestic cricket.
His performance is more conspicuous because of the success of other English cricketers in the league, like Ravi Bopara, Samit Patel and Joshua Cobb. Prime Bank’s Bopara has made over 513 runs in just nine matches, while Mohammedan’s Patel put on a match-winning performance against Gazi.
Morgan, for his part, is unconcerned with his form and said that he would not have any extra plans for the final.
‘I want to score runs all the time, but the important thing about our next match is that we win the match,’ Morgan told New Age at a city hotel on Tuesday.
‘If I score runs that will be fine, but if we win the match I will be happy.’
-With New Age input
