England must find right time to move on from Eoin Morgan

The wait goes on. When Eoin Morgan top-edged Tom Cooper to point on Sunday, it extended his wait for a half-century in professional cricket, which will have reached 356 days by the time of Wednesday’s last one-day international in Amstelveen.

In almost a year since hitting 75 not out in a one-day international against Sri Lanka, Morgan has played in the Hundred, the Indian Premier League, the Vitality Blast and for England in both limited-overs formats. Yet while the colours of his team’s shirts have changed, Morgan’s lack of runs have remained the same. In 28 innings since that July 1 last year, Morgan has mustered just 373 runs at 17 apiece.

The worries about Morgan extend well beyond his paucity of runs. His fitness has also become a growing concern: he was injured playing back-to-back Twenty20 games for England in the Caribbean in January, and no longer plays back-to-back games for Middlesex. “It takes longer to recover,” Morgan said last month. "I'm just old, I think.” Morgan turns 36 in September, and has played international cricket for England for 13 years, with another three for Ireland before that.

Add it all together, and it is hard to escape the sense that we are entering the last days of Morgan, the final throes of a remarkable international career. At best, Morgan’s England career will extend to the end of the defence of the ODI World Cup, which begins in 16 months. But it now seems increasingly unlikely that Morgan’s captaincy will not extend beyond the end of the T20 World Cup in Australia in October and November.

There is even a legitimate debate to be had about whether Morgan will get there. “I'm going to take it as it comes, managing my contribution, my body,” he said before the ODI series in the