‘He’s your best player’ – Kevin Pietersen urges England not to drop Jason Roy after latest Hundred failure

Kevin Pietersen has backed Jason Roy to rediscover his form and urged England not to drop the struggling opener, calling him the team’s ‘best player’.

Roy, who starred in England’s 2019 World Cup win, has endured a poor summer, scoring 197 runs across 11 international innings.

The 32-year-old has also made a subdued start to The Hundred, scoring ten runs in two games and falling for a first-ball duck in Oval Invincibles’ opening fixture against London Spirit.

However, despite his lean run of form, Roy has received public support from England legend Pietersen, who says he should keep his place in the team for the T20 World Cup later in the year.

‘Jason is 32 and what I’m sick and tired of in this country is people getting written off at such a young age,’ Pietersen told Sky Sports.

‘Jason is a World Cup winner, he’s done an unbelievable job for Eoin Morgan [England’s former white-ball captain]. He was told by Eoin, like the whole team, to go and smack the ball.

‘With smacking the ball and being a risk-taker, you are going to fail and when you start failing, failing can happen for a long time.

‘If Rob Key [director of England men’s cricket] is listening, he is England’s best player and he has been England’s best player for a number of years. What they should be saying is “back your best players”.

‘If they replace him and put a new guy in for seven T20s in Pakistan and he fails, people start saying “we need Jason Roy for the World Cup”.

‘Leave Roy. Give him the opportunity through the Hundred and T20s and back him.

‘They’ve done it with Zak Crawley in the Test team – Ben Stokes has categorically said Zak Crawley will play for the rest of the season. England need to do that with Jason Roy in the T20 team.’

The Hundred: London Spirit