England's limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan has enthusiastically backed cricket's "brilliant" newest format after turning out for Kerala Knights in the T10 League in Sharjah. Morgan suggested that T10 is the closest cricket will get to baseball, and that the format might even play a role in the sport's Olympic aspirations.
"The T10 format is brilliant," Morgan told reporters after arriving in South Africa to join the Tshwane Spartans' Mzansi Super League campaign. "It's probably the closest cricket will get to baseball.
"It exposes a different aspect of cricket. It also attracts a different fan as well in the sense that you'd probably find a lot of people there who wouldn't go to a normal cricket match. It's so easy to understand because it's arguably as simplified a cricket match as there possibly could be. I'm a huge fan."
The simplicity of T10 enhances its appeal with children, Morgan suggested, adding that tailoring cricket towards the young is vital to growing the game. It's something he also likes about England's go at a new format, The 100.
"The more you can tailor cricket towards kids, the more you can grow the game," Morgan said. "Cricket's scoreboard has a million different things going on. If you're trying to explain that to a kid and you're a parent who's never played cricket, this is a solution. It's 100 balls and you need to score as much runs as you can. The parent becomes a coach."
Morgan also reiterated his feelings that T10 could provide cricket's path to the Olympics.
"You can start and finish an eight-to-ten-team tournament within 12 days. You can't do that in T20 cricket, it's not feasible," he said. "If we can grow the game in this manner, I'm all for it."