Indian skipper Rohit Sharma tipped Ollie Pope’s sensational knock as the best he has seen in the Indian conditions by overseas batter. Pope scored a masterclass knock of 196 runs in the second innings of the opening Test, which England won by 28 runs at Hyderabad on Sunday.
After India took a huge lead of 190 runs, it looked like England was down and out of the game but Pope played one of the best comeback knocks in the history of the game.
Pope’s 196 is the highest for England in the second innings against India in India. Furthermore, Pope’s knock of 196 was also the fourth-highest individual score by a visiting batter in India in the second innings of a Test match.
Meanwhile, Rohit feels 231 was chaseable in the final innings but they didn’t bat well on the penultimate day. No Indian batter was able to get past the 40-run mark as debutant Tom Hartley registered figures of 7-62. Hartley registered fourth-best figures by a visiting bowler in India as a debutant.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “ Cricket is played over four days, so it’s hard to pinpoint where it went wrong. Having got a lead of 190, we thought we were very much in the game. Exceptional batting, one of the best that I have seen in Indian conditions by an overseas batter, Ollie Pope played a brilliant knock. I thought 230 was gettable, there wasn’t too much in the pitch. We didn’t bat well enough to get to the score. I went and checked where we bowled, we bowled in the right areas.”
He added, “When you finish the day, you analyse what went well and what didn’t go well. The bowlers executed the plans really well, but you got to take your hat off and say well played to Pope. That was some serious knock. Hard to look at one or two things. Overall, we failed as a team. After the first innings of their batting and our batting, I thought we were very much in the game. We didn’t bat well enough to get to that score.”
Rohit added the lower order showed fight in the second innings but the top order could not get the job done for the team.
He concluded, “The lower order actually fought really well there and showed the top-order that you need to fight it out. You need to show character, you need to be brave enough, which I thought we weren’t. We wanted to take some chances, we didn’t take chances with the bat. But that can happen. It’s the first game of the series, I hope the guys can learn from that.”
The second Test match between India and England will be played at Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam from 2nd February.
