England opener Jason Roy will captain the Oval Invincibles in their upcoming Hundred match against Northern Superchargers, with regular skipper Sam Billings missing due to his involvement in the England Lions tour match against South Africa.
It is a major show of faith in Roy, who has endured a difficult summer so far with the bat and has never captained a team at senior level before. However, with another captaincy candidate in Will Jacks also on England Lions duty, Roy has been handed the job and says he is "relishing the extra responsibility".
And the Invincibles will be hoping Roy can find some form against the Superchargers, having managed just 76 runs from 98 balls in six T20Is this summer and scores of nought and ten in The Hundred.
"I was delighted to be asked to captain the guys and am relishing the extra responsibility," Roy said. "Although it's only for one game, it's an honour to lead the team."
Despite his recent struggles, Kevin Pietersen has issued a passionate defence of Roy. He told Sky Sports : "Jason is 32 years of age and what I'm sick and tired of in this country is writing people off at such a young age.
"Jason is a World Cup winner, he's done an unbelievable job for Eoin Morgan. 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 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 Roy for the World Cup'. Leave Roy.
"Give him the opportunity through the Hundred and T20s to find form again 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."
