England captain Morgan 'delighted' with first win

Christchurch, Feb 23 (IANS) On a high after clinching a World Cup Pool A game against Scotland, England skipper Eoin Morgan said he was delighted with the performance as the players got a chance to express themselves here Monday.

Desperate to get a win after losing to Australia and New Zealand in the first two games, England rode on a century from left-handed opener Moeen Ali (128) and knocks from Ian Bell (54) and Morgan (46) to post 303 runs on the scoreboard.

Scotland were greeted with some good bowling from the England pacers upfront, their only resistance came in the form of Kyle Coetzer, who top scored with 71 runs. Finally, the Scots were bundled out for 184.

“Delighted with today's performance, today we played not within ourselves but expressed ourselves little bit, which was good to see. Two openers were exceptional and ideally we would have liked to kick on without stuttering. But we recovered really well to a good score,” Morgan said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

The skipper lauded his bowlers for their performances and said it was nice getting some much needed runs under his belt.

“We are really flexible in our batting, today was all about a win. As we get close to Powerplay we are flexible. Nice to get some runs under my belt," he said.

“I thought our bowlers were really good, standout performances from (Steven) Finn and Broady (Stuart Broad). Moeen (Ali) was brilliant chipping in with his 10 overs," the 28-year-old added.

"It's great to have (James) Anderson and Broad back at full strength, their combination works and that's a massive plus for us.”