Eoin Morgan on England's voyage of discovery and maturity to the Cricket World Cup

For a man who has spent the last four years building for this moment, Eoin Morgan suddenly finds himself overcome with impatience. The plans have been in place for some time, the squad has been finalised, and the 2019 Cricket World Cup is now a week away. All that’s left to do – all he wants to do – is play.

As ever, though, the England men’s captain exudes a deep calm as he talks about the journey his team have been on, one that has taken them from the trauma of Adelaide in 2015 to the biggest summer of their lives. Just a couple of perfunctory warm-up games remain before they take on South Africa at The Oval next Thursday. But he knows, as we all do. Whatever happens over the next eight weeks: right now, England are ready.

And so, as Morgan nears the moment that will define his legacy as a cricketer and a leader, he’s been thinking more and more about what it all means. What it’s all for. Why he does this, why we’re all doing this, and why a nation of 60 million people should get behind his team. The values his side should embody, and the responsibility they should embrace.

Ultimately, he says, it all comes down to the cap. “Every time you open up your bag, your cap is right in front of you,” he says. “It’s a gentle reminder of how much responsibility you have, and the privileged position that you’re constantly in. And to make the most of it.

“Our values as a team are to encourage respect and unity. They’re symbolised in the three lions on our cap. The crown on the cap stands for taking the cap forward. It’s something across all three formats, that myself, Joe [Root, Test captain] and the whole squad have come up with over time, that everyone can relate to. On and off the field. To many people it might only be words. But to us as international cricketers, travelling around all the time, the one thing that is constant right from the beginning is your cap.”

To Morgan, the cap represents more than playing right. It means doing things right. By your team-mates, by the public, by the game. It means not shying away from difficult decisions and difficult conversations, whether it was the sacking of a fine batsman in Alex Hales or the omission from the final 15-man squad of a fine bowler in David Willey or a talented all-rounder in Joe Denly. The latter, he says, was “the toughest decision I’ve ever been a part of”.

And on Monday night, as he broke the news to a distraught Willey, he reminded him that he may still be needed later in the tournament. “We had that conversation,” he says. “Explaining that there’s nine group stage games, the fact that we have four fast bowlers, and one of them is likely to get injured. It happens. The same conversation with Joe. We need to plan for everything.”

The decision to drop Hales, meanwhile, was a painful but necessary call, taken after news of his failed drugs test reached the public domain, threatening to disrupt the hard-won tranquillity of the squad. “It’s something I’ve never come up against before,” he says. “We hadn’t planned for that. But we had planned for incidents where our culture would be tested. We’ve been better equipped at dealing with anything that’s cropped up: as a group, and me as a captain.”

This, in many ways, encapsulates the voyage of discovery and maturity that Morgan’s side have undertaken over the last four years, from a talented but skittish side prone to outrageous swings in fortune, to a hardened, even-tempered unit ready to deal with whatever they face, whether it be a piggishly slow batting wicket or an unexpected disciplinary issue. Morgan agrees when asked whether an incident such as the Hales controversy would have derailed his team a few years ago. “It probably would have,” he says.

That development has also manifested itself on the field, where England have moulded their various and manifold talents into a superbly nuanced whole, capable of competing in all conditions. The turning point in this respect was probably the Champions Trophy semi-final at Cardiff two years ago, when England failed to adapt on a low, difficult surface and were thrashed by Pakistan.

“The biggest learning out of that was that it came a little bit early,” Morgan says now. “We didn’t realise how good we were, and how poor we were on slow wickets. Ever since, we have improved our play both home and away, and on wickets that don’t necessarily suit our planning.”

This England 50-over team are often described as “fearless”, and when they are bashing 350 totals with abandon, it feels like an apt description. Morgan disagrees. “I wouldn’t say we feel fearless,” he says. “Two years ago we felt more fearless, and we were quite young as a team. With two more years on top of that, we are probably better at coping, recognising and adapting to different scenarios through the game.”

The squad now selected, Morgan says he is “pretty close” to knowing England’s first-choice XI for next Thursday, pending a late judgement of conditions. He’s happy with his own form, too, more comfortable with his only natural inconsistencies and ironically more consistent as a result: in the last year he averages 68 at a strike rate of 109. No batsman in world cricket has scored more runs, faster.

Which is why he can’t wait to get started. Instead, there are two more warm-up games to negotiate, against Australia on Saturday and Afghanistan on Monday. “If the game was tomorrow, that would probably be better for us,” he admits. Morgan is ready. England are ready. We all are.