Ollie Pope Responds To Criticism After Lanka Win: England’s current Test captain, Ollie Pope, has responded to the criticism he is facing in regard to his recent form and said that it is important for him to block out the negativity at the moment.
The 26-year-old was appointed to be stand-in captain of the England Test Cricket Team after regular skipper Ben Stokes suffered a hamstring injury while playing in The Hundred a few weeks ago.
Pope did show some form in Test cricket at home. Earlier this year, he scored two half-centuries and a century in the three-match series against the West Indies. But since becoming the captain, his personal form has gone down the tank.
Having played four innings as captain so far, Ollie has scored 6, 6, 1, and 17. And while the Three Lions have won both their matches against Sri Lanka, their captain seems to have not shown up in the series. This seeing how several batters around him are showing some good form casts even more shade over his bad run.
Ollie Pope Responds To Criticism After Lanka Win
England defeated Sri Lanka in the second Test by a whopping 190 runs at Lord’s. Following the win on September 1, Ollie Pope opened up about his form and the criticism he has been facing due to it. While talking to the BBC, the captain said that this is so time to focus on the negatives and how Stokes had told him that eyes are usually more focused on the skipper.
“That’s the way cricket is sometimes—form comes and goes. The best players are the ones who can draw a line under it. Hopefully, I can put a score together. Chatting to Stokesy before this series, when you’re captain, you attract a lot more. It’s important to block it out and stay close to the people around me. There are a lot of voices, a lot of guys who want to have their say, past cricketers as well. That’s completely fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion,” he said.
While Pope has had some brilliant innings during his 48-match long career, which includes a gutsy 196 against India in India earlier this year, his average in the format is only 34, which some experts, like former captain Nasser Hussain, have highlighted.
Despite the captain not firing, Pope also said in the same post-match press conference that after winning the current series against Sri Lanka, he is looking forward to a clean sweep, which would also mean that England would win all their home matches this summer after defeating the West Indies 3-0, saying,
“It would be a pretty cool thing to look back on after a summer of six Tests and having won them all, if we can do it. We’ve played some really good cricket throughout this summer after a tough winter away in India. To get used to winning games back to back is really pleasing for us.”
The third and final England vs Sri Lanka Test match will start on September 6 and will be played in the Oval in London.
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