Ollie Pope on why England slowed down at Lord’s: ‘Would’ve been really hard work trying to play (Bazball) on that pitch’

There were a couple of jibes thrown at the England batters during the tussle of Day 1 of the Lord’s Test. “Where’s the Bazball?,” asked Mohammed Siraj with a smile more than once, with India captain Shubman Gill too joining in at another occasion.

For all the talk of England’s Bazballing ways, the first day of the third Test saw them slow down the pace of the game. Or at least their scoring, reaching 251/4 at the end of play.

Explaining their decision to bat slow and set aside Bazball for the day, Ollie Pope, who had batted for 104 balls for his 44 runs before Ravindra Jadeja sent him home, said the team realized they needed to read the situation as well.

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Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj sledge England batters. (Screengrabs: X/Star Sports) Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj sledge England batters. (Screengrabs: X/Star Sports)

“It was the traditional… pretty slow pitch. It wasn’t a pitch you never really felt in on. I think obviously ending the day 251-4 is pretty good. It’s slightly different to how we normally go about putting together innings, but we’ll take it and hopefully we can kick on tomorrow,” Pope said on BBC Test Match Special before talking about himself. “I’m not going to say I ever felt in my best rhythm. It is slightly different, but for me I think it’s important to make sure I’m not too one-dimensional. I obviously managed to face 100-odd balls. I did feel pretty good, obviously I made a pretty annoying error after Tea. It’s a shame not to be with Joe (Root) batting at the end of the day, but there’s positives I can take.”

Asked if, in this game, England had given an indication that they can adapt too, rather than sticking to their take-no-prisoners, six-runs-an-over Bazballing style, Pope said: “It would have been really hard work trying to play that kind of game on that pitch today. It was spoken about after the Headingley victory and we do want to be a team that is positive, is entertaining, but we want to read situations as well. I guess that’s what we’ve tried to do today and fingers crossed it rewards us over the next few days.”

Asked if this kind of change in their batting philosophy was something England would not have done last year or the year before, Pope said: “I guess so. Obviously our orders are ‘pretty far scoring on your good days’ as it is. I think individually that’s something that everyone wants to keep getting better at. We all know we can score those hundreds of 120 balls, but when we need to dig in, I think everyone’s aware that there’s definitely still a place in Test cricket on the surface for that as well.”

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