Roy Wonder – The 4th ODI

The weather in London yesterday was crap. It was gloomy, wet and breezy – not exactly ideal conditions for watching live cricket. Thankfully however, the game itself turned into an absolute peach if you like bat dominating ball. It’s not often you see over 600 runs in just 81 overs.

The Oval sometimes produces incredibly high scoring affairs and yesterday’s ODI was one of those occasions. Sri Lanka batted with real intent for a change and compiled a rather handy 305-5 off 42 overs. Gunathilaka, Mendis, Chandimal and Mathews all made very good half centuries. None of England’s bowlers, with the possible exception of Adil Rashid, performed particularly well.

Unfortunately for the tourists, however, their large total proved nowhere near enough. Jason Roy had one of those days where you just sit there thinking ‘wow’. He was totally dominant and looked like an fully grown man playing against an U-15 team. His hitting down the ground was particularly imperious.

Roy is prodigiously talented. His technique has its foibles (at least it used to!) but he’s sensational when he’s in the mood. His two centuries in this series show that he’s finally putting it all together. If he keeps this up, he’ll become one of the most feared ODI openers in the world.

Breezy twenties and thirties don’t win games. Big hundreds do. Roy’s 162 came off just 118 deliveries. That’s the kind of meaty contribution that turns heads around the world. It was the second highest score by an England batsman in ODI history.

The biggest score, of course, was Robin Smith’s unbeaten 167 against Australia at Edgbaston back in 1993. Now that was one hell of an innings too. I remember it extremely well – although England ended up losing the game (as was the style at the time).

I’m actually quite glad that The Judge’s record remains intact. His innings was one of the best I’ve ever seen – 167 off 162 balls against Craig McDermott, Merv Hughes and Tim May in an era when bats were smaller, boundaries larger, and anything above 250 was a big score. Here’s the scorecard if you fancy a trip down memory lane.

James Morgan

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