Eoin Morgan says blaming The Hundred for England’s Ashes failure is “laughable”

Eoin Morgan has categorically rejected suggestions The Hundred is to blame for England’s Ashes humiliation

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England ‘s limited overs captain Eoin Morgan has branded suggestions that The Hundred is to blame for the Test team’s 4-0 Ashes defeat to Australia “laughable”.

Morgan insisted that Test cricket has “always been the priority” and described The Hundred as “an unbelievable success”.

In an appearance on talkSPORT’s Following On podcast, Morgan said: “People that use that as an excuse don’t watch cricket.

“Test match cricket has always been the priority: it’s the format for our elite players.

“Obviously times at the moment have been tough down in Australia during the Ashes [but] they always are: we’ve lost the last two series 5-0 and it’s no surprise that Australia are very, very good at home.

“Given the prep the guys have had where since they’ve arrived in Australia, until the first Test match, it has hammered it down with rain… it’s laughable to point the finger at the Hundred.

“The Hundred is an unbelievable success. Our formats in county cricket and the Hundred, in the way they’re structured, it’s exactly the same as Australia’s.

“People need something to blame so they’ll point at probably the furthest point to reality, because nobody wants to say: ‘you know what, we haven’t had the prep we would have liked, we probably haven’t played as we’d have liked, and we’ve lost’.

“That happens in all formats, but I stress: Test match cricket has always been the priority.”

ECB chief executive Tom Harrison has acknowledged the need for a “reset” in order to turnaround England’s Test fortunes.

“Our priority is Test cricket,” he insisted. “We want to be successful at white-ball cricket, of course we do. But we absolutely need to be successful at Test cricket.

“It feels like this is a moment to reset the importance of red-ball cricket in our domestic schedule, for us to recalibrate how we play first-class cricket in the UK.

“It’s a brilliant opportunity for us to come together as a game and really sort that once and for all.

“We have got to sort our schedule out. We know that is a significant challenge for us. We have got to look at that debate around the volume of cricket.

“It was a leading topic about whether we are preparing players at home in the best possible way for Test series and we have really got to get to the bottom of this once and for all.”