Roy left sweating on place after another failure with the bat
Jason Roy looks set to be dropped for England’s Champions Trophy semi-final after another failure at the top of the order.
Roy has now gone nine innings without passing 20 averaging 7.5 this summer. He was lbw second ball to Mitchell Starc and now faces an anxious wait to see if he will play in Cardiff on Wednesday after Eoin Morgan indicated that a change is a possibility.
Morgan has been rock solid behind Roy throughout his poor run this summer, and tried to reassure him before the first game by saying he would play in the whole tournament. But when asked about Roy after the Australia victory, he was more vague.
“It is unfortunate he did not get runs today,” Morgan said. “We have had three games in the tournament and we will take a look at our team to see what our best team is.”
Morgan paid a glowing tribute to Ben Stokes after he delivered the finishing touches to a fine performance that sent Australia home from the Champions Trophy. Morgan believes Stokes has returned from the Indian Premier League a better player and his second ODI hundred of the summer underlined potential that according to the England captain is “through the roof ”.
Stokes turned 26 last week and is just starting to reach his peak years. His slaying of Australian bowlers in front of a full house here brought back memories of the deeds on this ground in Ashes Tests by Andrew Flintoff and Ian Botham. True, this was an Australian team rusty from having two previous matches rained off but the way Stokes and Morgan attacked when the team was pushed on to the back foot by Starc and Josh Hazlewood underlined the new approach this team takes to one- day cricket. It was an Australian-esque counter-attack.
“Ben is naturally very aggressive and finds attacking quite easy and his potential is through the roof,” said Morgan. “He bowled four overs in his first spell and then came back at the end to bowl the hardest two of overs of the innings, and that sums him up. Then his batting was exceptional. He was very calm at crease, very relaxed. All those games he played at the IPL came to the fore today. He was outstanding.
“He is always looking to influence the game whether with the bat, ball or in the field. At mid on he saved a lot of runs where guys were trying to nick them to gain momentum. We went through a period of five overs when [his fielding] was unbelievable.
“He always wants to be in the game. When things are not going your way some guys back into a corner but that is not Ben’s way.”
Morgan rated the victory over New Zealand in Cardiff as more impressive, but it was perhaps just a bit of EnglandAustralia kidology when he declined to rank this victory as one of the best of his tenure. The way his team fought back from a poor start with the bat would have been beyond them two years ago, and it was sparked by a pep talk in the rain break.
“We just talked about how we would go about it,” he said. “It was important to get some sort of partnership going and negate Australia’s bowling. They bowled really well up front and asked a lot of questions and got the ball moving. We felt the positive way would be the best way. We spoke about how we would go about it differently.”