Good news comes too late for Morgan

EOIN MORGAN yesterday revealed that he does not require surgery on the broken finger that ruled him out of England’s World Cup squad — and that he could have been fit before the end of the tournament.

The Dublin-born batsman was deemed unfit to play any part in the competition after damaging the middle finger of his left hand in the fourth one-day international against Australia in Adelaide last month.

England coach Andy Flower said last week that Morgan required an operation and an ECB spokesman said yesterday the Irishman’s recovery time was still expected to be six weeks.

But, with the final in Mumbai on April 2 — six weeks from now — Morgan’s tweet yesterday suggests the situation is not as bad as initially feared.

The batsman wrote: “Some good news this morning ... no need for an op on my finger, pretty much healed, will be back sooner than expected!”.

Morgan was immediately bombarded with pleas for him to rejoin England’s squad, but while teams can replace injured players in the build-up to the tournament, England cannot now draft him back into the party.

The loss of Morgan was a huge blow to a squad already reeling from a number of injuries sustained during the seven-match one-day series in Australia that came after the Ashes. The Middlesex player is England’s most dangerous batsman in this form of the game.

He was replaced in the squad by Ravi Bopara, who is a member of the 15-man group preparing for England’s first warm-up match, against Canada in Fatullah on Wednesday. Morgan played for Ireland at the 2007 World Cup, including the famous win over Pakistan in the group stage.

Meanwhile, captain Andrew Strauss backed up Kevin Pietersen’s claim that he was not planning to retire from 50-over cricket after the World Cup.

The word was that Pietersen was ready to concentrate only on Test and Twenty20 cricket but the captain revealed: “Kevin has denied those rumours.”