BIRMINGHAM: Producing possibly the catch of the tournament might not be enough to keep Jason Roy in England’s cricket team for the Champions Trophy semi-finals.

Roy followed up a wonder-catch on the boundary with yet another batting failure in England’s rain-affected 40-run win over Australia at Edgbaston on Saturday.

A second-ball dismissal for 4 means the opener has scored just 51 runs in eight international innings this summer.

“It’s unfortunate that Jason didn’t get runs today,” England captain Eoin Morgan. “We are three games into a tournament and we will take a couple of days to look at what our best team is for the semi-finals.”

Considering Morgan began the Champions Trophy by saying categorically Roy would not be dropped, it was a definite change in tone from the captain.

The replacement for Roy would be reserve batsman Jonny Bairstow, who has had to be content with carrying the drinks in this tournament. He is in form this season, hitting a team-high 51 in the third ODI against South Africa during the Champions Trophy warmups and a career-high 174 in a one-day competition for Yorkshire on May 3.

Roy’s run of international scores this summer reads: 0, 20, 1, 8, 4, 1, 17 and 4.

Against Australia, he struck a straight drive for four off his first ball then got trapped lbw on his second off the bowling of Mitchell Starc.

He asked for a review, without even consulting with his fellow opening batsman Alex Hales, but it was plumb.

Roy looked dejected as he walked off, contrasting sharply with his emotions after his catch that removed Glenn Maxwell and altered the course of Australia’s innings.

Australia were 239-4 in the 43rd over when Maxwell swiped a hard, flat shot off paceman Mark Wood that was heading for a six until Roy reached above his head for a brilliant catch. Teetering next to the boundary edge, Roy threw the ball into the air to avoid carrying it over the foam marker and hopped either side of it before collecting and completing an extraordinary play.

It was the first of five wickets to fall for 15 runs as Australia collapsed to 277-9.

Roy is proving to be England’s only problem heading into a semi-final probably against the winner of Monday’s Group ‘B’ game between Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Every other batsman has scored at least a half-century Ben Stokes was the latest with his 102 not out against the Australians and Morgan said his bowling unit was “on form”.

“We’ve proved that we can peg sides back regardless of where they’re at going into the last 15 overs of the game, which are normally, probably two or three years ago, a bit of a car crash for us,” Morgan said. “So that’s a huge improvement. And our batting just seems to thrive.”

England has never won a global 50-over trophy.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2017