English opener Jason Roy’s 180 in Melbourne helped the visitors to end their drought of victories down under, against Australia. He played a ferocious knock to help England chase down a stiff target of 305 during the first ODI at the MCG.
Talking about the innings, Roy said that balance in the middle-order helped him play his attacking game. As quoted in cricbuzz, he said, “I think the main thing is knowing how good each other is. Knowing our middle order is incredibly special and talented and can win games from anywhere. To have that behind you gives you so much confidence at the top of the order. Knowing each other’s roles is important and everybody knows their own roles. That’s something we’ve built on and got a good foundation now. But it’s one win, four more games to go.”
Speaking about his innings, Jason said, “It was an absolute honor to be out there on the MCG and to get a score like that, to win our first game of the series is incredibly special. There’s not many words right now but I’m sure in the next couple of days I’ll have a bit more. It is extremely special, especially after the Test series.”
When asked about the dressing room atmosphere, the hard-hitting opener said that its tough but the good start of the ODI series has brightened up the atmosphere. “It was obviously quite tough, we knew the boys were going to be a bit down and it was our task to come in and lighten up the mood, bring the positivity and get the boys going. I think we’ve done it and there’s a lot more smiles going on now. It’s a good start to the series but it’s by no means finished, we want to be as ruthless as possible,” he said.
Royan Signed off by expressing his mindset, he said, “It’s been a while coming, I had a very tough year in 2017… being dropped from the side and then being brought back into it towards the end of the year. It kind of gave me a bit of a kick to recognise where I’m at, where my preparation is and start building up a platform to get ready for internationals. It has turned round incredibly quickly, that’s the nature of this game – especially in one-day and T20 cricket.”