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Jason Roy: 'England in strong batting position for T20 World Cup'

Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler are among the options at the top of the order.

Jason Roy says England are in a "great position" in terms of their batting options ahead of the first Twenty20 international against South Africa.

England face the Proteas in Cape Town on Friday in the opener of a three-match T20 series.

Regarding the number of potential openers, including himself, Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, Roy said: "I don't have a preference. It's mad, the amount of batters is quite frightening (battling) for our top six or top seven. It's a great position to be in.

"I'm not fussed who I open with, whether I open, what goes on, what dynamics they go with, but it's a good position leading into a World Cup."

England reached the final of the last T20 World Cup and will go into the next year's tournament in India among the favourites.

Roy added: "Sam Billings touched on it the other day in one of the articles I read, about it being one of the hardest sports teams to infiltrate.

England have a strong T20 side
England have a strong T20 side (Glyn Kirk/PA)

"The amount of players out here – Tom Banton and Tom Helm sitting here as reserves, and they've got frightening talent. It's a beautiful position to be in, spoilt for choice.

"Playing for places is quite a hard thing to do. You've got to concentrate as an individual on the next performance. If you start playing for places you can lose sight of what you're trying to achieve.

"If there's players on this tour who are like 'I need to play for my place' then that's not what we're here to do. We're here to win the series."

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Sam Curran in action for England on January 19, 2020
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