IPL 2021: SRH pick Jason Roy as Mitchell Marsh's replacement

England opener Jason Roy has been roped by Sunrisers Hyderabad as a replacement of Mitchell Marsh, who has pulled out of the IPL 2021 owing to personal reasons. The news comes just hours after the Australian all-rounder decided to not feature in the tournament. Marsh had also missed the major part of the IPL 2020, after getting injured during a match. 

Roy, on the other hand, has shown some really good form with the bat in recent times. The 30-year-old English batsman opened the innings for his national team in all the limited-overs matches against India. He made three scores of above 40 during the five-match T20I series and followed that up with scores of 46, 55 and 14 in the three ODIs. 

Roy has previously featured in the IPL, playing for Gujarat Lions in 2017 and later on with Delhi Capitals (then Delhi Daredevils) for one season in 2018. The frontline English opener managed to play only eight matches in those two seasons. Since then, he has been unsold in IPL auctions, the latest being in 2021. 

Jason Roy joins his England ODI opening partner Jonny Bairstow at SRH

The right-handed dashing batsman had expressed his disappointment for not getting picked in the league this time around. He had a fantastic stint with Perth Scorchers ahead of the IPL 2021 auction, yet any team didn’t bid for him.

Roy who plays for Surrey in English county cricket has featured in a total of 235 T20 matches in his career. He has scored 6085 runs in these games with an average of 27.78 and a strike rate of 142.47. Roy also has four T20 hundreds along with 40 fifties in the format. 

Talking about his IPL numbers, Jason Roy has scored a total of 179 runs from his eight matches. His only score of fifty-plus came during the 2018 season when he played a sublime knock of unbeaten 91 for Delhi against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium. 

Roy will also join Jonny Bairstow, his England ODI opening partner, with whom he has shared several great partnerships. For now, it seems that Roy will be kept as an option of back-up opener with Bairstow and captain David Warner in the mix.