Jason Roy "overcome with a few emotions" following South Africa century

The England opener came into the first ODI off the back of a run of poor white-ball form but lit up Bloemfontein with 113 runs off 91 deliveries

Elizabeth Botcherby | 28/01/2023 at 13:06

Jason Roy admitted he was "overcome with a few emotions" following a much-needed ODI century against South Africa.

The England opener headed into the first ODI off the back of a run of poor white-ball form. In 2022, he scored 206 T20I runs in 11 appearances, losing his spot in the side ahead of the T20 World Cup, and a further 335 runs in 11 ODI innings, 101 of which came in one innings against the Netherlands.

Playing in the SA20 in the lead-up to the series, his form showed little sign of improvement, with the Surrey batter mustering just 100 runs in eight outings for Paarl Royals.

However, he lit up Bloemfontein on Friday, scoring 113 runs off 91 deliveries – only his second ODI century since the 2019 World Cup – to put England well on course for victory. A batting collapse ultimately left them 27 runs shy of 298 as South Africa took the series lead, but that didn't take too much of the gloss off Roy's performance.

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^{Roy celebrating his century in Bloemfontein [Alex Davidson/Getty Images]}

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^{Roy entered the series in poor white-ball form [SA20]}

"I'm feeling very good [today], I actually didn't sleep that well – I had about five hours sleep. I was overcome with a few emotions and stuff like that, it's been a turbulent few months," he said. The emotions were obvious on field as he roared with delight as he brought up his century with a boundary off Anrich Nortje.

"It's been a horrible year. [The celebration] was a little bit of anger around it all just because I set everything to the back of my mind and locked a few things away in a cupboard and went out and played the way I have played throughout my career.

"I was frustrated I hadn't got to that mindset earlier, but it was a nice feeling."

He is not willing, however, to get complacent, knowing all too well that the depth of England's white-ball batting talent means he will have to continue scoring runs to secure a spot in the 2023 Cricket World Cup squad.

"I've played a lot of games in my career, been around for a while now, and even after a bad year, you can get forgotten quite quickly," he said.

"Hopefully [I will play the World Cup] but it's one step at a time. It's one game into a series, one game into the year in international cricket, so I've got to keep scoring runs and just building this team to the place where we were at back in 2019."