Jason Roy is in the midst of a poor run of form and his spot in England 's T20I side has come under fire ahead of the T20 World Cup later this year.
Roy scored just 76 runs from 98 balls in six T20Is this summer and England white-ball coach Matthew Mott has hinted that the opener is running out of time to find some form. "I've always believed that, in great teams, different types of players fire and they miss out," Mott said.
"You can hold that for a bit, and you get some currency from having delivered on the big stage - but at certain times, hard decisions need to be made." Roy was challenged to go and score some runs in The Hundred, but has continued to struggle for the Oval Invincibles, getting a golden duck against London Spirit and a run a ball ten against Welsh Fire.
However, speaking on Sky Sports ahead of the Invincibles game against the Fire, Kevin Pietersen delivered a passionate defence of Roy. "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," he said.
"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."
