On the surface Chris Silverwood’s first T20 series with the bulk of England’s premium players ended in success, a 2-1 series victory including a chasing down a mammoth 223 (with 5 balls to spare) would generally be considered a good stepping stone ahead of this winter’s World T20 down under however it was the perfect platform to expose deep lying issues that have been lingering for a while with regards to both player and team tendencies.
Disclaimer: Before you indulge yourself in a flurry of rants and opinions on this site (most will be hastily deleted as England lift the trophy in 9 months time) it must be noted that this site is likely to be entirely negative. I would love to give heavy praise to Eoin Morgan et al for their stance on team building and in particular insisting he would persist with Jos Buttler as an opener even if he was to fail throughout the series but there are plenty of ‘better’ writers out there who are already doing that for you, I wouldn’t want to waste your time on that front.
Anyway; case study number 1…Jason Roy.
Jason Roy – Should I stay or should I go?
Any ‘normal’ cricket fan or pundit would be delighted with Roy’s returns this series, particularly his 70(38) in the opening game alongside 40(29) in the second match in Durban….but not me. If anything both innings helped to showcase Roy’s huge long-term flaw in his game that not only impacts his own performance but also that of the team, he simply doesn’t know how to pace an innings and subsequently recognise when to ‘get out’ in T20 cricket, an almost pivotal part of the modern game in terms of ‘optimising’ you and your team’s batting potential.
In both of Roy’s ‘big’ innings this series he rushed off to quick starts, he brought up his 50 off just 22 balls (13.9 RPO) in the opener and was a still admirable 32 off 21 (9.14 RPO) in the second but in both the scoring dried up at that point and resulted in his wicket. But why is this?
Well simply put Jason Roy isn’t a ‘complete’ T20 batsman. The Surrey opener needs matchups in his favour to score quickly for a sustained period of time and he has a particular weakness against leg spin, averaging 11.8 since start of 2017 and scoring at a lowly 7.15 RPO. Teams will inevitably notice this and it’s a major cause for concern with England going into a group with India, Afghanistan and South Africa, all three of which have high quality leg spinners their side(providing Tahir returns for South Africa).
No Tahir? Shamsi will do…
Analysing the matchups above Roy surprisingly scored slowly against Steyn in this series but it’s the Shamsi match-up that was his downfall. With left-arm leg spinner Shamsi operating alongside Phehlukwayo in the ‘middle overs’ Roy registered 19 off 16 and 8 off 8 after his two blistering starts mentioned above and left England in a bit of a rebuild phase when losing his wicket, essentially equaling out the positive impact his starts did have.
There are other factors as to why England suffered this drop in scoring during the middle overs(showcased below) other than Roy that i’ll get onto at a later date but Roy’s is the most prominent and obvious and was particularly highlighted when Buttler & Bairstow both played beyond the powerplay in the final game and showcased their skills against South African’s left arm leggie and slower ball pacer ‘middle over’ combination.
Having a high impact opening pace hitter with limitations such as Roy isn’t a bad thing for England but when he doesn’t understand his limitations as a T20 batsman, and similarly neither do the team, it fails to be a good thing either. Once the leg-spinner comes on to operate during the middle overs(if teams are not smart enough to use one earlier) Jason Roy should either hit out or get out, given the depth of England’s batting line-up; or face being replaced by the up and coming Tom Banton.
Roy has plenty of time to rectify this issue beginning with the Pakistan Super League this week where he will undoubtedly be peppered with spin, now is the time for him to play smarter and become the true team batsmen similarly to how he is in England’s ODI setup.
T20 Traditionalist 