Morgan: England fell into hands of defeat

Eoin Morgan said his side 'fell into the hands of defeat' in the second ODI against Australia at the Gabba. Centurion Morgan (106) described the loss as tough to take after England seemingly had the game won with Australia at 244-9 in pursuit of chasing down England's 300-8, before a barnstorming batting display from James Faulkner got the hosts over the line in the final over. Faulkner's exploits relegated the tourists to their seventh international defeat of the summer, with two straight limited-overs losses now added to their 5-0 capitulation in the Ashes. Despite yet another crushing blow to England's self-belief, Morgan attempted to find positives from the Brisbane match. "Everybody's disappointed, as you would be in falling into the hands of defeat like this," he said. "But we haven't got a lot of time before our next game, so it's a matter of dusting ourselves off in Sydney. "We've done a lot of things right today, it's just little things that we need to tweak. "And that will come with more experience, and it's especially our young bowlers coming through, who are getting miles and games and experiences under their belt, and it's great to do that now as opposed to in a year's time when you might have to do it in the semi-final of a World Cup." With the match seemingly in the bag, England had the look of a side who has forgotten how to win games, and Morgan described the stunning manner of the defeat as difficult to accept. "It is quite tough," he said. "I think we were all over today's game... and we let a good side come in at the end and allowed them to play, and didn't finish as well as we'd like. "We're as surprised as anybody at the result. "Certainly looking and performing convincingly throughout the whole game gave us a lot of confidence. "We've performed really well. "We know we have the capability within our squad and our side to perform and compete with this very good Aussie side, so we'll take that into Sunday." The third game of the five-match series takes place in Sydney on Sunday.