Morgan can be a significantly better player than he has shown in the first two Tests between England and Pakistan
Win, lose or draw, cricketers always play for pride when representing their country, so the old cliche about motivation for the losing side in a dead rubber match is just simplistic. Playing for credibility is quite another matter. England are, and will remain, the officially ranked No1 Test side in the world, and nothing that this series can do will alter that for the moment.
But another loss against Pakistan in the final Test which begins , in Dubai's International Cricket Stadium where the series began, and one of their long-term goals, to be regarded over a period of time as the best and most consistent of all England sides will not, as Jimmy Anderson said wryly after training , have got off to a very good start. Lose, and the jibes about being able to play only in the comfort zone of their own conditions, as directed at the previous top-ranked side, India, will start to hold water. Lose, and the blueprint for this series, designed to carry them forward into the following series in Sri Lanka and India later this year, and show that they are an excellent all-round side, will look a little shaky. Dead game this may be but there is a lot at stake.
The announcement from ICC headquarters, a spit from where the team were practising, that the bonus prize on offer to the side heading the rankings on 1 April is to be increased forthwith from the current $175,000 to $450,000 and incrementally for the two following years adds a further edge. England are on shaky ground. If they lose the final Test, and South Africa then whitewash the Kiwis in the three matches beginning in New Zealand in March, England will relinquish top spot right at the death, while even a draw in Dubai would leave them only dead level should South Africa take all three games. A win now for England would ensure breathing space, however slender, not to mention the boost to morale and bank balance.
In the meantime, England have spent the past few days coming to terms with what the Abu Dhabi defeat in particular means and how they go about their damage limitation exercise in Dubai.
Here there are two divergent viewpoints. The first says that with the series gone, there is nothing to lose (except potentially the No1 status of course) in making changes and trying out other options. The second says that there would be nothing further lost (see previous parentheses) by giving the team a chance of redemption from what was as much a fourth-innings aberration as total technical and mental breakdown.
They are sure to recognise that Alastair Cook still has the highest individual score; that they made 327 in the first innings in Abu Dhabi; that the bowlers have performed superbly; and that for all the hold that Saeed Ajmal is said to have over them, it was the less heralded orthodox left-arm spin of Abdur Rehman that wrecked them.
Andrew Strauss believes that, beyond technicalities, there was a fault in their approach to chasing a modest target which lay somewhere between their own caution and desire to get the hardness from the ball, and the gung-ho of the media centre. The stomach bug that hit Jonathan Trott and disrupted the batting order was not helpful, but the real collective failure came with the stroke-making middle order. One innings of substance would have done the trick. Instead, none of Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, or Eoin Morgan was around long enough to play himself in.
For this final match, it is important that the middle order fires, as much as a statement as anything. There has been talk of change, with Pietersen and Bell (who did not train on Wednesday because of the Trott trots but will recover) not immune, but mostly it is directed at Eoin Morgan, whose four innings here have brought ever decreasing returns culminating in a two-ball duck. A replacement, Ravi Bopara rather than the wicketkeeper-batsman Steve Davies, waits in the wings. Here, though, the arguments become divergent again.
If Morgan has failed as he has, but more pertinently looked so technically and mentally out of sorts doing it, what is Bopara doing here if he is not deemed suitable to play in such circumstance. On the other hand, in Bopara we have a player who in five years since a shocking debut series in Sri Lanka, has failed to nail down a place, and been dropped from the side several times after comebacks. His instinctive skills are obvious but his Test match temperament has been open to question. But then Morgan's temperament has been a strong point that made him, rather than Bopara, the chosen replacement for Paul Collingwood and look at the state into which he has got himself.
A change would have repercussions, for England and Morgan. If he did not play here, it would be implicit that he was unlikely to do so in Sri Lanka. That would not sit easily with those who have invested heavily in him. His defence needs tightening, for all the best players start from that standpoint. And he needs to reassess how useful and appropriate to Test cricket are the range of shots he has at his disposal. He needs balance in his play – physical, mental and technical. A personal view is that revisiting Bopara would not be a progressive move and that Morgan can be a significantly better player than he has shown here. He should be given the chance.