Jason Roy is a wonderful player, it was a poor decision to drop him: Kevin Pietersen

Playing in front of the home crowd, England were tipped to lift the Champions Trophy after falling short by just 5 runs in the last edition. Morgan’s men were shocked by a clinical Pakistan in the semifinals which ended the host’s campaign. England won all three of their group games defeating strong sides as Australia and New Zealand convincingly.

Jason Roy wasn’t coming into the tournament with a lot of runs behind him. In 6 games preceding to the tournament, Roy had scored just 50 runs but received unconditional support by skipper Eoin Morgan that he will play right through the tournament irrespective of his form. In the first three group games, Roy managed to post scores of 1, 13 and 4. He was subsequently dropped for the semifinals against Pakistan. Bairstow came in and batted well to make 43 while opening the innings. England batting capitulated to some fine bowling from the Pakistan bowlers to lose the game by 8 wickets.

Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen is critical of the England think-tank’s decision of dropping a player of Roy’s calibre. Pietersen, who plays with Roy at Surrey, has seen the opener from close quarters and hence knows about his destructive ability.

“He’s a youngster, he’s not going to nail his whole career. You go through ups and downs, he’s a kid. What he’ll learn to deal with is how quickly to get himself out of this bit of bad form. Is he a bad player? No. He’s a wonderful player. He shouldn’t have been dropped. That was a poor decision.

“I think they should just have given him a run for the rest of the tournament. I’m not saying they would have won that game but they should have just stuck with it. They were scoring 300 regularly and then you drop a player and you get what you get. It’s not probably because of him getting dropped because I think Jonny batted okay. I wouldn’t have done it, but I’m not the coach or the captain” said the star batsman at the launch of the South Africa T20 global league in London on Monday.

Roy is picked to play in the 3-match T20 series against South Africa which kicks start on Wednesday. He recently found some form as he hit 92 runs in a 50-over game for Surrey.

Pietersen, who like Roy was also born in South Africa, was disappointed with England’s campaign as he believed that they had a power-packed side capable of lifting the trophy. England hasn’t won a single 50-over ICC event and will have to wait for at least two more years to have a shot again.

“England are a wonderful young team,” agreed Pietersen. “I know that India and Pakistan won’t like it, but in strength in depth in English conditions, England should have won it. With the firepower, they have got and they players they have got, they should have won this tournament.”

In the end, it was Pakistan, who came from behind to win the eighth edition of the Champions Trophy on Sunday at The Oval.