England’s Test vice-captain Ollie Pope shared his disappointment after he could not carry his good form in the five-match Test series against India while playing in challenging conditions. Pope scored a magnum opus knock of 196 runs in the second innings of the opening Test match against the hosts and played a key role in taking England to a 28-run win in Hyderabad.
India had a healthy lead of 190 runs after the first innings but Pope’s masterful knock kept the visitors in the contest. However, after that knock, runs dried up for Pope as he managed only 315 runs in five matches at an average of 31.50. Pope got off to a couple of starts but could not convert them into substantial scores.
On the other hand, Yashasvi Jaiswal had an outstanding series, top-scoring with 712 runs in five matches at an average of 89 and was awarded Player of the Series.
Pope said as quoted by Daily Mail, “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.”
“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.”
Meanwhile, Pope admitted his role as a vice-captain is to make Ben Stokes’ job easier rather than become a headache for the skipper.
“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.
England will next host Sri Lanka for three Test matches.
