During the current Test match against Sri Lanka, star batsman Ollie Pope of England discussed how he is learning to distinguish between his captaincy responsibilities and his batting responsibilities.
In lieu of normal red-ball captain Ben Stokes, who was sidelined because of a hamstring injury sustained during The Hundred, Pope is leading England in the three-match Test series. The first Test match saw the Three Lions defeat Sri Lanka by five wickets at Old Trafford, Manchester, and the right-handed batter made a remarkable start to his captaincy career, although in an interim one. But the interim captain’s day at the bat wasn’t very good because he went out of the game after both innings for exactly the same six runs.
Ollie Pope claimed to have mastered the technique of dividing his duties as captain and batter.
In the second Test, which starts at Lord’s on Thursday, August 29, the 26-year-old stated that he hopes to do well with the bat.
“I discovered how to keep my captaincy and hitting separate. I think we should draw a line under that as soon as we leave the pitch and concentrate on batting’, Pope told BBC Sport.
It didn’t come for me, but the team’s victory matters more than anything else. In the next weeks, I hope to put together some solid performances and reward the team with some runs,” he continued.
Pope has almost two years of experience as Stokes’ deputy and has had up close and personal instruction in the art of leadership. The Chelsea native has been studying Joe Root, who led England in 64 Test matches and ended with a batting average of 46.44, for guidance on how to strike a balance between captaincy and batting.
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It’s nothing major, but the idea is to figure out a method to resume your usual batting stance. It’s just a matter of continuing to do what has worked well for me over the past several years and doing it consistently. All that needs to be done is figure out how to divide. Speaking with Rooty, I can see he’s England’s finest batsman and has a tremendous cricket brain, so we simply bounce ideas off each other,” Pope said.
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