World Cup winner Jason Roy now hopes to be invincible in The Hundred

HUW TURBERVILL: Surrey's World Cup winner will play for his 'home' team, the Oval Invincibles, as one of their two local icons, signed for £125,000 (the other is Tom Curran, and their 'Test' player is Sam Curran)

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Jason Roy hopes the logo of his new Hundred team is not a bad omen.

Surrey’s World Cup winner will play for his ‘home’ team, the Oval Invincibles, as one of their two local icons, signed for £125,000 (the other is Tom Curran, and their ‘Test’ player is Sam Curran).

The logo on their aquamarine outfit – sponsored by KP Nuts, no less – is an umpire’s finger raised.

Roy, 29, saw enough of that during the Ashes sadly, but was amused to discuss it today at the new competition’s ‘team unveiling’ in Brick Lane, East London.

“A nice logo of an umpire giving me out!” he joked. “The Hundred is going to be fun though, and it will be great to be at The Oval, a ground close to my heart.”

Would be have minded going north of the Thames to play at Lord’s, with Shane Warne’s London Spirit?

“No, it’s still London. Rory Burns will be playing for them, so he’s a little bit of a traitor!”

Roy is known for playing big shots from the off, whether it’s in a Test match, ODI or T20.

How will his approach be for The Hundred?

“I’ll look for a positive start and reassess from there. I don’t think there will be a huge amount different. Perhaps batsmen will press the button a little sooner.”

With five-sixths of the balls available in an innings, compared to T20, what kind of totals can we expect?

“Well in the T10 in the UAE teams can score 140-150; 108 is about average, and not always enough. Who knows in The Hundred? It could be plenty!

“Then there’s the time-outs to think about – they can be a bit awkward when a batsman is on a roll and bowlers are under the pump, but that’s another thing you have to adapt to.

“Matches on the BBC will be good to get cricket out there – that will be huge for the country, for youngsters who haven’t really watched it before.”

After speculating if some Surrey fans may support another team as their favourite star plays for them, he gives the kind of endorsement of the new tournament that the ECB want (and will need, to overcome the scepticism among traditional fans).

“It will be amazing. I think people will be pleasantly surprised by the enormity of the competition. The draft will be exciting, and there will be big games.”

Roy has been rested for England’s T20 series in New Zealand after his busy summer. “Thankfully I have not been dropped for that one as well [referring to his Test omission]. Some of the youngsters who did well in the Blast are deservedly going to get a go and see how they can cope in the spotlight, ahead of the T20 World Cup next summer.”

Roy is bound to remain a key man in England’s 50-over side, when they come to defend their World Cup title in India. The domestic 50-over competition will be played alongside The Hundred next summer though, with critics unhappy that the star names will be starved of that longer format. “That will be interesting to see how we will balance that out ahead of 2023,” he admits.

Autumn beckons and there is change in the air – something that can also definitely be applied to English cricket…

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