‘Incredibly kind gesture’: Morgan on Buttler’s decision to auction World Cup final shirt

England had managed to defeat New Zealand in the finals of the 2019 50-over World Cup by the barest of margins as both normal 50 overs-action and super over ended in a tie.

England ODI skipper Eoin Morgan has praised his team-mate Jos Buttler’s decision to auction off his 2019 World Cup final shirt to raise funds for two London-based hospitals to combat COVID-19. England had managed to defeat New Zealand in the finals of the 2019 50-over World Cup by the barest of margins as both normal 50 overs-action and super over ended in a tie.

File image of Eoin Morgan (AP)

The Three Lions managed to win the trophy on the basis of boundary-countback rule, and it was Buttler who broke the stumps during the super-over, denying New Zealand their first World Cup win.

“It’s an incredibly kind gesture. We have seen people donate during the Australian bush fires; we saw Shane Warne auction his Baggy Green cap for a million dollars or something absolutely ridiculous,” ESPN Cricinfo quoted Morgan as saying.

“The impact that can have on many lives as opposed to sitting in someone’s drawer as a bit of a trophy... personally, it’s something I don’t understand. People have come out and said they would never do it. Justin Langer said he could never see a situation where he would do something like that but I find that hard to believe,” he added.

The United Kingdom on Wednesday reported 563 deaths in a day, bringing the total number of patients in the country who died in hospitals to 2,352.

Some 29,474 people have now tested positive, a jump of 4,324 over the previous day, according to Al Jazeera.

The World Health Organisation had termed coronavirus as a pandemic on March 11.