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When Ollie Pope was announced to take over the reins as captain after Ben Stokes’ injury at The Hundred, the feeling was that it would have a knock-on effect on his batting and catapult it to a level above his existing one. He did have a pretty decent series with the bat against West Indies and the feeling was that against Sri Lanka he would take one notch further.
However, that has not exactly gone to plan for Ollie Pope the batsman. As captain, he has already pouched the series in the bag after England beat Sri Lanka by 190 runs at Lord’s to take the 3-test series 2-0 with the test at Oval to be played. With the bat though things have not been so rosy. With a meager return of just 30 runs in 4 innings, it has not exactly clicked for him in this series. The fact that he has not managed to reach 20 runs in either of his 4 innings has left him at the mercy of the media glare despite winning the series comfortably.
However, he has pledged to “block out” criticism of his batting, as the scrutiny on him mounts. “I’m not going to put down my average shot to the fact that I was captain,” Pope said. “I’ll learn from it and move on, but I think I’ve managed my own game better throughout this match… The second innings was slightly different, because we were really trying to push the game forward, but I was very disappointed with the shot I played in the first innings so early on.
“I’m not going to hide behind the fact that I’ve had two poor games with the bat. That’s the way cricket is sometimes and form comes and goes. But I think the best players are the ones who can draw a line under it and have a fresh start next week. Hopefully, I can put a score together.”
Pope has a history of being erratic in his early innings. He’s been called “the worst starter since prawn cocktail” by Steve James of The Times, and in 85 Test innings, Pope has already been removed 32 times in his opening 20 balls. Even though he entered the series with a respectable record after hitting a century and two fifties against the West Indies, he acknowledged that he is working to overcome his jittery starts.
“The last two games I’ve had, they’re learning games for me,” he said. “It definitely is something that I’m still trying to improve in my game, and obviously the way that I start my innings especially is something that I want to keep on improving – and then when I do get in, it’s trying to cash in as well.”
England have not won every Test in a home season since 2004, and will be pushing for a summer sweep. “It would be a pretty cool thing to look back on,” Pope said. “We’ve played some really good cricket throughout this summer, and obviously had a tough winter away in India where the results weren’t what we wanted on the return trip. So to get used to winning games back-to-back is really pleasing for us.”