England’s white-ball revolution, one that sees them in Sunday’s final of the World Twenty20 only 12 months after humiliation in its 50-over equivalent, began against New Zealand at Edgbaston last June with Jason Roy smashing the first delivery straight to the man at backward point.
Nought for one. An inauspicious start, you might say. And yet Roy, in trying to bludgeon Trent Boult to the rope first up, was doing exactly what comes naturally to him and precisely what this new England tell us they are preaching: to bat without a fear of failure.
This was certainly the case against the same opposition in the semi-final, with Roy’s 44-ball 78 breaking the back of the run chase for England in a blitz of boundaries. Was he thinking about the final when he went out to bat? “Nah, I just went out there and gave it a crack, mate,” he said afterwards.
For Alec Stewart, his director of cricket at Surrey, such an uncluttered mindset is exactly why a player like Roy fits into the shared philosophy of England’s head coach, Trevor Bayliss, his genial assistant coach, Paul Farbrace, and their gimlet-eyed captain, Eoin Morgan.
“If players cock up it’s not a crime under those three,” Stewart said. “That’s why our cricketers are expressing themselves and not scared of messing up. We do the same with Jason at Surrey, we tell him his talent is striking a cricket ball, to never stop. And he’s good, very good.
“Playing fearless cricket is about being given a licence to make mistakes. Some setups won’t allow talent to flourish but under Bayliss and Farbrace they’d rather a player got out attempting something than attempting nothing. And if you cock up, learn from it. It’s only when the thought process and the execution are both wrong you might have a word.”
The 25-year-old’s role as England’s berserker at the top of the order has been repaid to the tune of 183 runs at a strike-rate of 151, with his foot-down acceleration from the outset not only crucial in the semi-final but also the win over South Africa in the group stage, a game for which Joe Root, who marshalled the bulk of the run chase, earned the bulk of the plaudits.
Staring at a monstrous 230 to avoid almost certain elimination only two games into the tournament, the task switched to something far more manageable as Roy and his opening partner, Alex Hales, scrubbed off 48 of them in the first 14 balls of the pursuit.
Roy’s 43 from 16 balls after that was key and going into Sunday’s final at Eden Gardens, one that comes as little surprise to Stewart. “In the first six overs, batting first or second, Jason can just kill a game. And I’d go so far as to say he hits the ball as hard as anyone in world cricket; he can be destructive as anyone.
“He’s naturally strong and a fine athlete. He generates his power with his bat speed and when he gets the top half of his body behind a shot he really drills it. He knows he’s good, he just now needs to understand that without taking any of his natural flair away, the longer he stays in the crease, the more match-changing he will become.”
Roy has always been a fast starter. Moving to England from Durban, South Africa, aged 10, his talent was soon spotted by Whitgift school in Croydon, when on a course for under-11s, with the offer of a scholarship following. Neil Kendrick, the former county spinner who is the school’s head of cricket, recalls a battle to get the young batsmen to rein it in occasionally.
“He was such a clean striker of the ball. I know it’s a buzzword at the moment but was such a fearless player too,” Kendrick said. “I spent most of my time trying to get him to stick around a bit longer. He always scored at over a run a ball. The most staggering was when he struck a 28-ball hundred against Charterhouse school.”
After making his debut for Surrey in a Twenty20 against Kent in 2008 aged 17 and batting at No8, Roy’s reputation would rocket two seasons later when, on his third appearance in the format, he struck an unbeaten 101 from 57 balls against the same opposition at Beckenham.
It came a few months after Kevin Pietersen had been named man of the tournament in England’s 2010 World Twenty20 win and given Roy’s explosive batting style, their shared heritage and a tattoo or two along the way, it did not take long for the tag of “Mini-KP” to stick. The pair would become team‑mates at Surrey that summer, with Stewart convinced the pair’s subsequent five-year alliance played a key part in the younger man’s rise. “Jason has learned a lot from KP, he’s been very good for him. They are with the same management company and I know they speak regularly still.
“Jason looks up to him. Whatever people think about KP he had a really good influence on our dressing room and the way he spoke to our young players. Like Kevin, J-Roy’s strength is striking a cricket ball and now it’s about making sure what he did the other day is not a one-off but the start of something.”
