IPL 2021: Sunrisers Hyderabad sign up England opener Jason Roy to replace Mitch Marsh

Sunrisers Hyderabad signed up England batsman Jason Roy as replacement for Mitchell Marsh, who has made himself unavailable for the entire season owing to personal reasons, the Indian Premier League announced on Wednesday.

Marsh, who made his Indian Premier League debut in 2010 has played a total of 21 IPL games. His replacement, Jason Roy made his IPL debut in 2017 playing for Gujarat Lions and later featured for Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) in the 2018 IPL edition. He has played a total of eight matches and scored 179 runs with one half-century to his name.

According to a report in Cricbuzz, “the all-rounder expressed inability to spend long times inside the bio-secure bubble and informed his decision to the Board of Control for Cricket in India as well as to SRH.”

Sunrisers Hyderabad have acquired Roy at his base price of Rs 2 Crore. The Englishman was part of the Delhi Capitals last season before he had withdrawn. He was in India as part of the England squad and was in good form during the T20Is and ODIs. Roy was part of the Perth Scorchers side in the Big Bash League earlier this year.

Roy will be united with fellow England opener Jonny Bairstow at SRH, but with the latter sitting out matches at the back-end of last season, it remains to be seen if the English duo will get to play together at the top of the order in David Warner’s side.

Last season, Marsh had been ruled out of a part of the Indian Premier League season due to the ankle injury he suffered during the game against Royal Challengers Bangalore. The franchise had brought in West Indian all-rounder Jason Holder. Ahead of the 14th season, the 2016 champions retained both Marsh and Holder.