Kolkata: English opener Jason Roy chose to look at the positives despite being handed defeats in the first two matches of the ODI series in Pune and Cuttack against the hosts India, according to NDTV. He said that England would look to end the series on a high when the two teams faced each other at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata this Sunday. The entire English side is looking at this series as preparatory ground before the Champions Trophy, slated to be held in England in June, Roy said.
And he continued, “Of course you want to finish the series on a high, but every game from now on till the Champions Trophy is going to be stepping blocks for us going into that huge competition.” The slam-bang opener chose to zero in on the positives from both these matches and said, “We’ve got a huge amount of positives to take from the last few games. Although we got outplayed, we have put in some seriously good performances. We’ve scored 350 in the first game and 366 in the second. Those are positives to come out of that are amazing.”
English batting has been absolutely phenomenal. In both the matches, it took the Indian bowling to the cleaners. But somewhere, none of the batsmen, including Roy himself, despite getting good starts, couldn’t go on to score big as they were undone by some sheer Indian brilliance. Let’s take Roy for example. He was well set on 78 in the first ODI and looked good to get a big one, but gifted his wicket to Ravindra Jadeja. In the second match, he along with Root had put the pressure on the Indian bowlers, but was bowled off Jadeja. On this, he said, “On both occasions, I needed to stay in and get big hundreds. I should have done that. It was the plan. It didn’t work out that way, but like I said our batting unit got us to 350 and 370.”
He further added, “There’s nothing wrong with the team. We’re training very hard and having a good time. But like I said before, we’ve been undone by some incredible individual performances. We’re a confident side and whatever we come up against, we’re pretty confident.”
Roy’s regular opening partner, Alex Hales, another destructive batsman, has been ruled out of the remainder of the series with a fracture. As his replacement, Sam Billings joins. Billings who was seen practising at the nets at the Eden Gardens, has an incredible strike rate of 110.94 in ODIs and 150 in T20s. This is what Roy had to say on his teammate, “He’s a fiery batsman. If he gets the role of No. 2, that would be great. He’s a great guy to bat with — runs hard, plays strong shots and that’s exactly what we look for at the top of the order, just to set the tone.”
“It’s just a case of getting to know each other and I know everyone in the squad pretty well, so whoever I’m opening with is not a problem. He will just kind of fit straight in,” Roy added. The right-hander has bad memories in Kolkata when he was bowled for a duck in the World T20 final against the West Indies, which won the title. “It’s a mixed bag really. Obviously being in the finals was incredible and then disappointment after the game. But good to be back, obviously it’s a dead rubber but we’ve got to stamp our mark on India a little bit,” he said.