Ton will fit the bill for super Sam
ENGLAND will expect to wrap up a series win in Antigua today and Sam Billings is desperate to be the man who makes it happen.
Not just with a fifty or sixty, but with a maiden hundred that would make him hard to ignore as the next cab off the rank, putting pressure on the regular starters.
Regardless of the result, Billings is most probably heading into his final international of the winter at the Sir Vivian Richards ground in Antigua because Alex Hales is due to be fit for the last game in Barbados.
“It is frustrating to get the odd game here and there,” said Billings, who made 55 in the win on Friday. “It was good to get some runs, but you want to make it count when you’ve done the hard work.
“Halesy has been in fantastic form over the last year. I think he’s got four hundreds in ODI cricket and he’s a fantastic player to come back. I can’t worry about that though.
Pressure
“I take confidence from the fact I got a fifty and Moeen Ali said to me after I got out, ‘Come on, at the end of the day you would have taken a fifty over a nought wouldn’t you?’
“I don’t think any player really thrives on the pressure of having to get a score. I got one game in Bangladesh and maybe if I’d got a hundred instead of 65 then I would really have pressed my claim.
“Mentally it is an experience, and you’ve got to take out of it what you can. It is professional sport so it is good for the side that there is so much competition but individually I’ve really got to make these opportunities count and get three figures.”
A big hundred in Antigua would be perfect timing for the batsman who is keen to stay ahead of Jonny Bairstow in the pecking order and recently de-robed for toff mag Tatler providing much dressing-room hilarity.
“With the photos, you get approached about these sort of things and sometimes you do it. We haven’t lived them down in the dressing-room though. It’s terrible.”