Jason Roy blogs on Virat Kohli's masterclass, Joe Root's new baby, and his Blacklist obsession
Wednesday 18 January 2017 16:27, UK
England opener Jason Roy reflects on England's defeat in the first ODI to India after Virat Kohli and Kedar Jadhav's "phenomenal" efforts, plus welcomes back Joe Root after the arrival of his baby son, and talks of his obsession with The Blacklist...
The defeat on Sunday was hugely deflating.
Obviously there are a lot positives for us to take - we thought 350 was a decent total - but we've just got to hold our hands up and admit we were beaten by a phenomenal effort from Virat Kohli, and Kedar Jadhav.
I mentioned in my first blog about how I'm hoping to get a bit of time with Kohli during the series, to pick his brains. That hasn't happened yet, but it was just amazing to see first-hand in the field how he goes about his business.
He's obviously a class player - he had a dream year in 2016, and has started 2017 in similar fashion. It was a great innings to watch, but just annoying that it helped them win.
Although, even as they were building that massive partnership, none of us in the field ever thought the game was getting away from us. We were gunning for the win all the way until the last few overs.
Ideally, it would have been nice to maybe see Kohli score a century but then get out and we still win the game.
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We've now had a bit of downtime before the second ODI in Cuttack, on Thursday. A lot of the boys have been to play some golf, although I haven't been able to, due to dislocating my finger when in Sydney for the Big Bash.
Instead, I've mainly been catching up on a bit of sleep - I couldn't after the first ODI because the buzz from the ground was ridiculous - and I'm currently hooked on the TV show, The Blacklist. It's unreal!
Looking back on the game in Pune, if we're critical, we should have probably got 20-30 runs more when batting. It was an extremely good wicket, and if one of the guys who got in - like me - could have kicked on to get a hundred, maybe we could have done that.
I'm feeling good with my form, but I'm past the stage of being satisfied at getting the team off to a good start. That's not just my job - I want to win games for England, and getting 70 and getting out isn't going to do that, although it was still a nice score for me to start the series.
Joe Root and Ben Stokes also hit half centuries - that's Rooty all over. He stayed at home for the birth of his first child, then comes straight out here, plays in the first game and scores some runs.
It's not surprising, he's a class act. And he has slipped very naturally back into being part of the group. We just got on the bus one morning and all of a sudden he was sat there at the back.
I normally sit at the back of the bus too, so he has been showing me a few photos - he's obviously a really proud dad. Congratulations to him and his partner, Carrie, who have now got a very cute baby boy, Alfred.
Stokes' knock, meanwhile, was just what we needed - that extra bit of firepower. We've got that in spades lower down the order, with the likes of him and Jos Buttler coming in.
A lot of our batsmen are going into the rest of the series in a decent amount of form, so the next game should be a cracker!
We've just got to keep going about our business. There wasn't a huge amount said after the game on Sunday, to be honest, apart from try to look at the positives and keep our heads up going into Cuttack, because we're playing some good cricket.
350 was a hell of a chase by the Indian guys. Hopefully they don't do that again, we can find a way of getting Kohli out, and we win the next couple of games.
Watch the second ODI between India and England from 7.30am on Thursday, Sky Sports 2.
