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Ben Stokes has lamented the “culture” of English sport for what he considers to be needless criticism directed on Ollie Pope, the interim Test captain.
Pope, Stokes’ vice captain, has taken over as team captain for the current Test series against Sri Lanka as Stokes heals from a ruptured left hamstring. The Surrey batsman is hoping for a clean sweep when he returns to the Kia Oval on Friday after supervising decisive wins in the previous two Tests. After Stokes guided England to a convincing 3-0 victory against the West Indies earlier this summer, victory will give England their first perfect record in a home season since 2004.
Pope has played excellent field management, but the added pressure has hurt his batting. He has received a lot of criticism for his average of 7.50 from four innings, which he attributes to his inability to balance being the captain with scoring runs at the third position. During the second Test, former England captain Michael Vaughan was very critical of Pope, calling him “an insecure human being” and unfit to be a leader.
Stokes, who has played for the team the entire series, forewarned Pope that taking on the role of captain would bring with it further criticism. Stokes is happy with how Pope, 26, handled the extra pressure and performed well on the pitch, despite not being shocked by the remarks made about him.
“Unfortunately, it’s just English culture towards sport,” Stokes told ESPNcricinfo.”There’s always got to be someone in the firing line and obviously when you’re captain you are more exposed to that.
“He’s won two games out of two in charge. At the end of the day, I think that’s the thing that he’s concentrated on the most. He obviously wants to be scoring runs and leading from the front. He’s openly admitted that.
“People are very quick to jump on anything, to someone who’s in the firing line and obviously Pope coming in and being captain whilst I’m injured, you can say he’s the easy target there.
“But I think he’s done fantastically well in leading the team. He’s done it his own way, which is something I encouraged him to do, to keep driving the team forward in the way that I’ve been trying to do, but make sure that you put your own personal touches to it.
“I think he’s tactically he’s done very well. Let’s not forget before that first Test against Sri Lanka, he’d come off the back of fifty, fifty and a hundred (57, 121 and 51 in consecutive innings against West Indies). And then he doesn’t have one good game and everyone’s saying he is out of form. It’s like ‘short memories people, come on!'”