Morgan ready to front up against Pakistan

Morgan switched mid-series against Australia to the Masuri helmet, with its additional neck-guard developed after Phillip Hughes suffered a fatal blow from a bouncer previous year, and he has since updated to a bespoke model individually moulded for him.

But the 37-year-old said: “After the World Cup, I’ve been waiting for this moment for seven or eight months”.

Buttler hurt the ring finger on his right hand and gave up his wicketkeeping duties earlier than planned to his limited-overs deputy Jonny Bairstow in England’s warm-up victory over Hong Kong on Sunday.

England’s last one-day series in this part of the world ended in a 4-0 win over Pakistan, but Morgan insists that will have no bearing on the current campaign.

“Long-term he’s certainly somebody that we are looking to nurture, particularly for his white-ball skills”.

New Zealand were beaten in a thrilling series which saw England score 400 in an ODI for the first time, before world champions Australia were taken to a deciding game in a keenly-fought five-match rubber. So there is an element of Morgan remounting the horse when the ODI series against Pakistan gets under way today.

“It was never in my mind that I’d be playing two or three series”. “I still look back at it now and, hats off, it was a pretty good delivery.

They offer a different challenge, a varied amount of spin, reverse swing and these conditions enhance that challenge”, Morgan said.

“That’s one thing we’ve gained over the last six months”, said Morgan.

“It was about 10 days before I was, I suppose, myself – balance, grogginess, it was a really weird feeling”. I got hit on the neck at Lord’s and wasn’t wearing a neck guard, I changed to a new helmet.

“I’ve worked on the short ball quite a lot so hopefully it will put me in good stead for this series”.

“It’s a personal opinion, I feel more protected with the neck guard that they have, so I went for the full helmet”. Being in that position having never been in it before anxious me a lot.

Since then, he has upgraded further – for comfort – and added: “I’ve had scans on my head to have a mould for my own helmet, which I’m wearing now”. “I know guys who have had longer concussions and I feel very lucky to be back this soon”.

“Probably no one would have given us a hope in hell against Australia and New Zealand”.

“It was a very productive summer for us, in which we’ve seen a lot of our youngsters (come up with) a few unbelievable performances”, he said. The two teams will also play three Twenty20 internationals.

“He’s a leader in the group [albeit a soft-spoken one] and I think he holds the first and second fastest hundreds for England, which is a huge accolade”.

“We have two left-armers in our squad and Liam Plunkett and Chris Jordan, who have different aspects to their game that might come into use out here, where the ball doesn’t move that much off the straight and you have to come up with different ideas”.