NEWS
Follow UsOn August 21 (Wednesday), Ollie Pope will become the 82nd man to captain England in the upcoming red-ball series against Sri Lanka. That opportunity has come by only because Ben Stokes injured his hamstring during the recently concluded edition of The Hundred.
"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 take a step forward,” he added.
So, how will England set up under Pope’s captaincy?
"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,” he said.
Thus far in his career, Pope has only led Surrey once in his entire first-class career but now has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity against Sri Lanka. However, he won’t be alone, with Stokes still set to be with the squad.
"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. It's a lot of the same messages from a different voice and in my own way… He's going to let me go and do my thing over the course of this series,” Pope said.
"He's obviously going to be watching, chatting with Baz, and I can have those conversations in the intervals if I think anything needs to change and [we can] bounce a few ideas off each other. I think it's only a positive having him around."
Pope has had a stellar 2024, with 554 runs with two hundreds, including a 121 against West Indies at Trent Bridge earlier in the English summer. Not to forget the scores of 57 and 51 in the other two innings, showing his worth as a batter. But will the burden of captaincy affect him, or will it be for the better?
"Hopefully, it's almost a positive on my batting. 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."
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