Rory Burns has been 'sent off to the dark side' after joining London Spirit for The Hundred, jokes Jason Roy

England batsman seeking to strike a balance after summer of contrasting fortunes
Long-time team-mates Rory Burns and Jason Roy will be on different teams for The Hundred
Getty Images

Jason Roy says Surrey team-mate Rory Burns signing for a rival London Hundred franchise has given him some much-needed material as he prepares his best man’s speech for the England opener’s wedding, joking, "He’s joined the dark side!"

Roy has been confirmed as one of two ‘local icon’ players to represent the Oval Invincibles in next summer’s inaugural competition.

However, the franchise opted to take Sam Curran as their sole permitted centrally-contracted England player, leaving Burns without a place on the roster of his local side.

He was instead picked up by London Spirit, the franchise to be based across the capital at Lord’s and supported by Surrey’s major county rivals, Middlesex.

That sets up the rare prospect of Roy and Burns, who have been team-mates ever since their school days and formed England’s opening partnership at the start of the Ashes this summer, facing off on opposing sides.

“He's been sent off to the dark side!” Roy said. “That'll be interesting. Our minds are on his wedding - his wedding's on Saturday! So we haven't given a lot of thought to this.

“I'm worried about my best man's speech, to be honest. Now I've got some material so that's good.”

Roy had a mixed summer, excelling as England’s ODI opener in the World Cup triumph, but struggling in the same role in the Test side, eventually being demoted down the order and then dropped.

He has been left out of the Test squad for the tour of New Zealand later in the autumn, and admitted that, although keen to regain his place, he is struggling to find the right balance with his white-ball exploits.

“It was very tough in Test cricket, against a very good attack after a very long summer,” Roy said. “There's no excuses, it was just the way of the tide. I've just got to suck it up and get try and get back in the side.

“There's a determination there but unfortunately there's not a lot of opportunity to be determined. It's quite a tough balance, it's hard to get my head round.

"I can't do anything about that - if I worry about getting back in the Test side it will affect my franchise cricket.

“Who knows, it's completely out of my hands. I look at my next tournament.

"I'll play in the T20 league in South Africa, after that, if they want to select me for the Test series in South Africa I'll look at that, but if not then I'll look forward to the ODIs and T20s there, and won't look too far ahead.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in