It has been a turbulent few months: Jason Roy on his lean run

In the first of the three-match ODI series featuring South Africa and England, Jos Buttler-led outfit were outplayed by the hosts and lost the game by 27 runs to go 0-1 down. 

In pursuit of 299 runs, Jason Roy scored a sublime hundred off 79 deliveries to keep England in the run chase. However, the opening batter was dismissed for 113 runs off 91 deliveries in the 30th over that derailed the run chase. 

Despite the loss, the team management and Roy himself seemed pretty relaxed after ending the century drought. "I'm feeling very good. I actually didn't sleep that well and had about five hours of sleep. I was a bit overcome with a few emotions and stuff like that. It's been a turbulent few months, but I woke up really well, though it was the best five hours of sleep I've had," Roy said, as quoted by ESPN Cricinfo. 

"Yeah, it was a little bit of anger around it all, just because I set everything to the back of my mind and locked a few things away in a cupboard and went out and played the way I have played throughout my career and which I haven't played in the last couple of years. I was frustrated I hadn't got to that mindset earlier, but it was a very nice feeling," he further added. 

The 32-year-old endured a dismal 2022 and missed out on a place in the England squad for the T20 World Cup Down Under. Despite starting the year with a century, he feels there is a lot of work to be done before cementing his place in the ODI World Cup scheduled to be held in India later this year. 

"I've played a lot of games in my career, been around for a while now, and even after a bad year, you can get forgotten quite quickly. It's a case of keeping pushing, keeping this environment going in this culture we have in the team because it's a huge year ahead for us in 50-over cricket," he said. 

"Hopefully, I will play in the World Cup, but it's one step at a time. It's one game into a series, one game into the year in international cricket, so I've got to keep scoring runs and just building this team to the place where we were back in 2019."

"It's been a horrible year - it's not how you start the year, it's how you finish it. I think I started last year pretty nicely, and then things went downhill from there. I've just got to stay positive and keep pushing," he concluded. 

With South Africa leading the series 1-0, the two sides will lock horns for the second game in Bloemfontein on Sunday, January 29.