31 Aug 2015 | Cricket
Eoin Morgan once again hailed the "exciting" young players that inspired another thrilling limited overs victory for England, as his side overcame Australia to win by 5 runs at The SSE SWALEC.
Morgan, who hit 74 with the bat, praised the maturity shown by Ben Stokes, whose accurate final over denied Australia victory at the death.
With Steven Finn and David Willey having bowled their allotted overs, Morgan turned to Stokes and admitted he was by the cool head displayed by the Durham allrounder.
Morgan said: He took the responsibility of bowling that over really well. I hadn't earmarked him before the day started as bowling that over. Given the situation we had to bring our frontline bowlers on to try and take the game further into 20 overs.
After Morgan and Moeen Ali blazed a partnership of 135, England faltered in the final few overs, finishing on 182/5 and Morgan said he believed they should have scored more.
The partnership with Mo rebuilt things but part of me was disappointed we didn't make 200.
Returning from a month's rest, Morgan stormed back to form with an outstanding captain's knock, but claimed he wasn't surprised with how sweetly he struck the ball.
He said: I probably wasn't surprised. I felt fresh, mentally and physically.
He concluded by lauding the efforts of his young team in overcoming another obstacle, following the astounding achievements in the ODI series against New Zealand earlier in the summer.
Morgan added: We have an exciting group of young cricketers - even outside the 14 who have been selected, we have four or five guys pushing for places. It's a very exciting time for us, but its important that we recognise this is just the start of something and we continue playing in the fashion that we do.
England now head to Southampton and the Ageas Bowl on Thursday for the first match in the Royal London ODI series.