Former England captain Michael Vaughan has opined on Ollie Pope leading the English Test side in Ben Stokes’ absence for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka. Vaughan added that Pope has a massive challenge but he also backed the youngster to handle it well. Stokes tore his hamstring during The Hundred 2024 game between the Northern Superchargers and Manchester Originals, which has ruled him out of the three-match Test series. He will hope to be fit for the Pakistan series in October as well.
In his column for The Telegraph, Vaughan wrote, “The biggest challenge for Pope is managing without Stokes in his team. The XI is immediately 25 per cent worse than the one Stokes usually has. They will have an early decision to make on whether they go in with a four-man attack, including a spinner, because the seamers are all a bit fragile, either towards the end or at the start of their careers.”
With Ollie Pope set to lead England for the first time, Vaughan feels Brendon McCullum’s support will be important. While Ben Stokes’ returns with the bat didn’t help much against the West Indies, he was bowling at full tilt. The veteran also stated that although he did not
initially view Ollie Pope as a future captain, the batter seems like a “terrific guy.”
“Besides, there is no question that this is still Stokes’s team. Pope is just stepping in for a few games. Brendon McCullum might have to step up and be a bit more hands on as head coach to help Pope out, but he has lots of senior players around him like Root. In Stokes’s absence, Ollie Pope will step up. I’ll admit Pope did not immediately strike me as a captain. He’s always seemed a terrific guy, a really good man to have in your dressing room. There’s always been a bit of insecurity about his batting, with those skittish starts, and he can sometimes look like he’s got too many preconceived ideas about how he wants to play a situation,” he again shared.
“But he is more than capable of becoming a really fine Test player, and has all the tools with the bat. He completely dominates when he goes back to county cricket with Surrey. He hasn’t totally nailed the top level yet but the move to No 3 has been good for him. He averages almost 45 in that position. The big challenge for him is dominating against the best teams,” Michael Vaughan concluded.
