England’s test vice-captain Ollie Pope has opened up on his biggest regret of his international career when he missed the big scores during the side’s test tour of India. Pope had been batting in the no.3 spot during the tour picking 196 runs in the first test match where the visitors had an impressive win of 28 runs.
While speaking in the medial, he recalled his mindset during the series against India. He started with full confidence, but soon his form faded away in the next four Tests as he failed to adapt to the conditions. He looked up for Yashsasvi Jaiswal who scored 712 runs in five tests with an average of 89. He smashed two hundreds and three fifties with a strike rate of 79.91 in the series.
“We felt like there was quite a negative sort of narrative on the team after India, but we always knew winning out there is the biggest challenge in cricket. When I hit that 196, I was like ‘Right, I am going to go and have a big series. Like Yashasvi Jaiswal had, trying to score as many as possible. But I probably didn’t adapt my game quickly enough to the conditions that were in front of me rather than just the conditions of the first Test.”
Despite picking up 196 runs in the first test, he picked up only 119 runs in the other nine innings of the series to complete 315 runs with an average of 31.50. He felt annoyed for not being able to make his count.
“That was a frustration because when you go into a five-match series, you’ve got a chance to play yourself into form but you can play yourself out of form too, and in 10 innings in India that’s exactly what happened. I felt good a couple of times, got myself in, and if I’d kicked on and made one of those innings an 80 and a couple of them 50 it’s completely different. That’s the frustrating thing for me – I’m not so annoyed with the low scores, it’s more when I get myself in and don’t kick on.”
Ollie Pope believes it’s his job to make things easier for skipper Ben Stokes and hailed the latter for his ability to listen to the player’s opinions. Stokes was named as test skipper in 2022 and has helped the side to win 17 out of 26 games.
“You wouldn’t always think it, but he’s good at listening to everyone’s opinions. The reason I’m in my role is because I want to be able to challenge him when I see something that I don’t think is quite right, and he wants me to challenge him too, rather than just agreeing with everything he says. My job as a vice-captain is to make his job a little bit easier rather than be a headache for him,” said Pope.
In a recently completed test series against West Indies at home, England’s Ollie Pope smashed a stunning century in the first test helping the side to secure a dominating victory in Lord’s. He also spoke about England’s Bazball approach and feels confident about making 500-600 runs in a single day of the tests.
Coming to England’s next assignment, they will be hosting a Sri Lanka on a test series with the first test starting on August 21 at Old Trafford Cricket Ground.
