Having seen Ishan Kishan’s exploits in the IPL, England opener Jason Roy was not surprised at all when he saw the young left-hander taking the game away from his team in the second T20 International. Making his India debut, Kishan smashed a 32-ball 56 to help India level the five-match series on Sunday. “He’s obviously a star player, he’s done that for Mumbai Indians, numerous amounts of time so I wasn’t surprised when I saw him kind of teeing off a bit because everyone knows he’s a star player so good on him,” Roy said in a virtual media interaction with the UK media.
“A couple of times he might have got a little bit wrong with the ball but he capitalised by hitting it for six. It’s just a case of just making sure you kind of execute your skills extremely well.”
India have come into the series with the intention of playing more fearless cricket, which was on display in the second T20. England, on the other hand, are already used to that brand of cricket.
“It has worked for us in 50 overs cricket, it worked for us in kind of 10 to 20 games we’ve played. Our policy is to play aggressive cricket, but the problem is, when you’re playing on pitches like this you have to be a little bit more calculated. You have to assess it a bit quicker,” said Roy.
“If you’re wanting to play that way, you got to accept that some days it’s not going to go that way. You are going to be three-four down in a Powerplay. But with the depth of our batting lineup, that’s the opportunity it gives to the top order batsmen,” Roy said.
On a turning pitch, England struggled with the ball in their attempts to defend 164 on a pitch that offered less for their fast bowlers and it’s likely to be the case for the third T20 as well.
“They are difficult but just as difficult as our spinners to face as well. We’ve almost learned enough already, that we should be kind of capitalising on what we’ve learned in this series but just last night we made a few mistakes,” he said.
Roy has been consistent with scores of 49 and 46 but has not converted into a big knock and that is something he wants to do in the remaining games.
“It was a kind of pitch where you’ve got to pick your bowler. Unfortunately the bowler I picked got me out. I was looking to target Washington (Sundar).
“If that over had gone for a few runs, it would have swayed the momentum of our innings quite a bit.
“What I learned was just to make sure I’m staying on my shots a little bit more. I missed a couple of my reverse sweeps. I was out of position, and then rectified that during my innings,” he said.
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Roy termed India a class team but said they are confident to bounce back on Tuesday.
“The boys have bounced back, we’re a fast learning side. I don’t think there’s been a huge amount of wind out of our sails to be honest,” he concluded.
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