LEEDS TEST
Pope scored his second hundred against India © AFP
There was something about the way Ollie Pope celebrated his ninth Test century that spoke volumes about the moment’s weight. After inside-edging a Jasprit Bumrah in-seamer towards the leg side, he scampered for the single and extended the run beyond the stumps with a yelp and a leap, a spontaneous burst of relief and joy.
Pope had scored his eighth Test hundred in his previous innings, a fluent 171 against Zimbabwe. But that knock didn’t shield him from the selection squeeze brought on by Warwickshire’s rising star, Jacob Bethell. Even with Ben Stokes calling Pope’s inclusion a no-brainer on the eve of the match, the England vice-captain took guard under his own personal cloud on a sullen Leeds afternoon.
He flicked the first ball he faced, from Mohammed Siraj, to the square leg boundary, a confident opening that set the tone for a brisk counterattack. He surged to 31 off 25 balls, in keeping with England’s positive approach to batting under any circumstance. There were shaky moments: a nervy LBW call against a Siraj nip-backer that stayed with the umpire’s call, and a sharp chance put down by Yashasvi Jaiswal at gully when he was on 60. But apart from those, which felt par for the course, this was a timely and terrific reaffirmation, a hundred that repaid the unwavering faith shown in him.
It was a big innings for Pope, not just in the context of his immediate future in England’s Test XI, but in the broader arc of his career. Coming into this Test, he averaged just 22.05 across 18 matches against India and Australia, the other two members of cricket’s so-called ‘big three’. That modest record lingered, even after his dazzling 196 in Hyderabad during the first Test of last year’s India tour.
Pope has often been a nervous starter, and his career so far has followed a feast-or-famine template. This innings felt like another swing at proving he could deliver when the stakes were at their sharpest. “It was goosebumps when he got his hundred, you could see what it meant to him,” said Ben Duckett, who shared a stand of 122 with Pope.”
Part of what made Pope’s innings even more special was that it came against an attack featuring Bumrah, the “best bowler in the world,” according to Duckett. “He’s good in India on the flattest pitches ever and, when he’s coming down the hill with the lights on, swinging both ways, it’s tough.
“He probably couldn’t walk out in tougher conditions, Jasprit running down the hill with the lights on. There’s no better feeling than that, scoring 100 against that attack after coming out at four for one. You can see that in the way he celebrated but it didn’t just mean a lot to him, it meant a huge amount in the dressing room as well.
“I don’t know what’s inside his head, but he just stayed true to the way he plays. And there’s no better feeling than that…scoring a hundred against that attack, coming in the first over. You could see it in the way he celebrated. It didn’t just mean a lot to him, it meant a huge amount in the dressing room as well.”
© Cricbuzz
