Not many players around the cricketing arena can boast of hitting the ball as cleanly as Jason Roy can. The man behind England’s rise to the top in the World Cup, the Surrey man often goes unnoticed but he is one of the pillars on which the current English limited cricket setup is built.
Jason Roy is a professional English cricketer who plays for Surrey at the domestic level and the England cricket team. He is a right-handed batsman who generally opens the innings in the shorter format of the game. Born on 21 July 1990 in South Africa, Roy moved to England when he was 10.
Jason Roy made his debut for the Surrey first team in a Twenty20 Cup match against Middlesex Cricket Team on 27 June 2008, and made his List A debut in the Natwest Pro40 League fixture against Yorkshire on 20 July 2008, the day before his 18th birthday.
However, some indifferent form saw him drop out of the first team and it wasn't until 2010 that he broke into the first team again. He promptly thumped 101 off 57 balls against Kent at Beckenham, Surrey's first T20 hundred. Later in the summer he struck an unbeaten 76 from 65 balls against Leicestershire on Championship debut.
But it was the 2014 season that really catapulted Roy to the top. In the 2014 NatWest T20 Blast, Roy struck 677 runs at 48.35 apiece - the highest tally in the competition.
Jason Roy represented Gujarat Lions and Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League in 2017 and 2018 respectively, but decided to pull out of the tournament in the following season owing to World Cup preparations.
In 2018, Capitals (then Daredevils) bought Roy for Rs 1.5 crores, but released him for the 2019 season. During his time with Capitals, Roy played five matches scoring 120 runs at a strike rate of 127.65, with 91 of those runs came in his first innings of the tournament, but only 29 across his next four.
In the recent auctions, he was bought again by Delhi Capitals for the same price. However, Roy has opted out of the current season citing some personal reasons and he will be replaced by Daniel Sams in the tournament.
Roy's white ball prowess isn't a secret anymore but his red ball technique has been often questioned. But England selector threw weight behind him and Roy made his Test debut against Ireland ahead of Ashes 2019. However, in the four Ashes Tests, he averaged just 13.75 with a best of 31. By the time he was demoted to No. 4, his confidence looked to have been eroded and he was dropped ahead of the final Test at The Oval.
After the miserable ouster from the 2015 World Cup, the English side needed some quick fixes and thus came Jason Roy in the picture. A right-handed batsman who had the ability to provide brisk start to the side which was still playing cricket in a style reminiscent of the early 2000’s.
Roy made his debut against Ireland on 8 May 2015. He was then selected again to represent England in the five-match series against New Zealand, in June 2015. The series remained a dud affair for the dasher but he had shown glimpses of what he could bring onto the table.
Roy was a part of an opening partnership of 256 with Alex Hales against Sri Lanka in 2016, which was the highest successful run chase without losing a wicket in ODIs.
If there is one reason that England came from the brink of an exit in the home 2019 CWC to winning the quadrennial tournament in the end then it has to be Jason Roy. The Surrey cricketer started the tournament in a fine fashion and scored a half-century and one-fifty against South Africa and Bangladesh respectively before bowing out of the next two games due to a hamstring injury.
England lost those games and were nearly staring at a 2015-esque exit from the World Cup.
Rushed back into the side - there was little evidence that he had fully recovered - Roy responded with three typically domineering half-centuries (innings of 66, 60 and 85) and three century partnerships with the equally prolific Jonny Bairstow in what were effectively knock-out games against India, New Zealand and Australia.
Jason Roy earned his maiden call-up to the English side for the one-off T20I against India in September 2014. Roy was selected in England's 2016 T20 World Cup squad but struggled in the opening game defeat against the West Indies. After a sedate start to the tournament, Jason Roy came to the part in the semi-finals as he smashed a quickfire 78 against New Zealand on a Feroz Shah Kotla wicket to help England qualify for the final against the West Indies. However, as the fate would have it, Roy got out for a duck in the final, and England went on to lose the game to West Indies.
Jason Roy was born on July 21, 1990 to Craig Roy and Chonell Roy in Durban, South Africa. In September 2008, Roy was selected for the ECB Elite Player Development. In the same year, Roy won the Easter Scholarship to spend the 2008/2009 winter at the Darren Lehmann Academy in Adelaide. On 7 October 2017 Roy married Elle Moore. They had their first child in March 2019.
