England’s stand-in captain Ollie Pope has said that there will be no case of mixed messaging when he takes over the reins of the Test team for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka. At Old Trafford on Wednesday (August 21), Pope will lead England in the absence of Ben Stokes, who has been ruled out with a hamstring injury.
“When I got appointed vice-captain, there was always a chance that something like this would happen,” Pope said. “It’s not necessarily something you dream about, but it’s one of the greatest honours I see in English cricket. It’s exciting for me, and it’s a chance for us as a team to try and to take a step forward.”
“It’s still Stokesy’s team. Everyone’s pretty clear how they want to go about this week, and this series in general. I think having Stokesy in the changing-room is great. If I want to lean on him, I can lean on him, and I think he’s going to let me do my own thing for the course of this Test series as well. I know how well he’s managed our bowlers especially, and I’ve picked his brains a little bit on that,” Pope further added.
Ollie Pope, who started the year with a stunning 196 in Hyderabad, has enjoyed a good start to the home summer with the bat as well. He scored 57 at Lord’s against West Indies before following that up with 121 and 51 in Nottingham.
“Hopefully, it’s almost a positive on my batting,” he said of the captaincy. “I’ve still put in the hard work in the nets with the bat like I do for Test cricket. I’m still at No. 3 when it comes to batting and my job for the team is still to go out and score big runs… when I had a bit of a stint in the T20 for Surrey, the first thing I reminded myself was, when it’s batting time, it’s batting time.”
“Then, the rest of the time, you can be the captain and think a little bit more about the team. I’ve got some great guys to lean upon on the pitch as well, obviously Brooky [Harry Brook] being vice-captain, he’s got a great cricket brain, and guys like Rooty [Joe Root] out there on the pitch too. There’s plenty of experience to bounce off a few ideas,” Ollie Pope concluded.
