The Irishman, who 'saved' English cricket

Having dragged England out of the dark ages in limited-overs cricket, England skipper Eoin Morgan, who switched over from Ireland, bowed out of international cricket on Tuesday in typically understated fashion, but his legacy led to an outpouring of adulation and gratitude.

Preempting a retirement, experts had been weighing in on the England skipper's fabled career since he alluded to an exit at the conclusion of England's ODI series against The Netherlands little over a week ago. Now that the official announcement is made, Graeme Swann joined the bandwagon in calling him a revolutionary.

"The legacy is quite simple, we have won a World Cup," said Swann during a virtual interaction. "We went from being almost an embarrassment in 2015 World Cup, even though he was made captain for that, that wasn't Eoin Morgan's team, that was old school English one-day cricket, with old ideas - to absolute champs in months.

"We were awful before that. We hadn't embraced the new way of playing. Thereafter, we picked the right players and began to believe that huge scores were possible and we could also be ultra aggressive. Morgan was given carte blanche by Andrew Strauss after 2015 to reshape English ODI cricket in his own vision. And, boy, did he save us!"

After succeeding Alastair Cook as England's limited-overs skipper ahead of the 2015 World Cup, Morgan led the side to their first-ever World Cup in 2019. After failing to build on a good campaign in the 2021 T20 World Cup, Morgan had then announced that he would prepare his side for the 2022 World Cup in Australia.

Owing to poor form and frequent injuries, however, Morgan seems to have fast-tracked the decision. Morgan had scored only one half-century across 48 innings since 2021, and most recently was out after registering consecutive ducks in ODIs against the Netherlands.

"I don't think we can overstate how brilliant he has been. His form has suffered recently, and I saw after the games against The Netherlands, he said: his body wasn't responding well," said Swann. "I know exactly what that means, I have been in the same situation where your body lets you down because of that you cannot justify your spot in the team. I know him well enough to know that he won't just hang around and cling on because he can. If he wanted to he could well have played another World Cup, but he's a proud man so he will know that if he can't justify his place in the side, he won't stick around."

Morgan is England's all-time leading run-scorer in ODI and T20 cricket with 6,957 and 2,458 runs, respectively. His tally of 225 ODI appearances and 115 in T20Is are also England records. More importantly, Morgan's seven-year stint ensured 20 bilateral series wins out of 30 series in ODIs, and 12 bilateral T20I series victories out of 21 series.

In this interim, England managed to climb to the top of the ICC world rankings in both formats, and they broke the world record ODI total thrice as the likes of Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow, Jason Roy and Ben Stokes gained confidence under his leadership.

"Basically, Morgan realised that there is no point in picking the Test team to play the One-Day game," said Swann. "He, instead, picked exciting young players who have grown up playing white-ball cricket, and have always played aggressive cricket. They nearly scored 500 runs on three occasions. That's Morgan's impact, and his leadership. It's amazing what he has done for English cricket. We should be so grateful for his impact."

When asked who should take over the reigns, Swann responded in haste: "Jos Buttler! He is good mates with Morgan and he has learnt plenty from him so he is the best pick for England. Also, I think ECB should give Morgan a coaching role with the side immediately."