The problem with Ollie Pope is he plays too many shots. The hands are always twitching, desperate to be kept busy. Sentient energy rather than one borne out of nerves or boredom. It’s hard to imagine he has ever let a piece of bubble wrap be.
It is why attacks feel he is susceptible outside off stump. Even why some England fans have not quite taken to him as a Test No. 3.
And yet, it is exactly why he is 148 not out going into a fourth day in Hyderabad that many thought was going to be free. It is how he was able to pull a knock of this magnitude out of the bag after stinking out the joint two days ago with 1 off 11, in his second innings since July’s surgery on his right shoulder to treat a dislocation suffered during the second Ashes Test. It is the reason England, having been 190 behind on first-innings runs, are now, somewhat inexplicably, 126 ahead and daring to dream.
Pope’s knock, already a hall-of-fame candidate, was the kind that had seasoned pros giddy. Joe Root, for instance, could not stop going on about it in his press conference at stumps, despite saying he was “speechless”.
“It’s one of the best knocks that I’ve ever seen,” said a bloke who has witnessed top-tier ones in India from the likes of Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen. Root is even responsible for a couple himself, notably a 218 three years ago in Chennai many would regard as the benchmark for success over here. “I’m not any more,” he corrected. “I think that’s the benchmark. Honestly, I might have scored a few runs in the subcontinent. But not on a surface like that against an attack like that.”
On a pitch skewed towards one of the most complete attacks going, it ticked a few boxes on the worldie checklist. Patience. Judgement. Guts. He checked them all, though maybe not in the traditional sense.
He was out in the middle for just over 67 overs, and yet played all 208 balls faced on impulse. There were 17 boundaries, crisp drives, tucks through midwicket, all with tidy feet, and yet he probably gunned for twice as many. Every time his bat was beaten on the outside edge, he’d nod, recalibrate, and offer it out once more. This was not risk-averse batting – this was a batter banging on risk’s door, then shouting through its letterbox: “Come outside, Ollie Pope just wants to talk.”
In a situation where runs were at a premium and balls were tailing in late from Jasprit Bumrah’s whippy right arm, turning sideways from R Ashwin’s magic fingers and keeping low from Axar Patel’s towering frame, it was somehow exactly what was required.
Pope witnessed Bumrah’s five overs of reverse swing take out Root and Ben Duckett, saw Ben Stokes lose his off stump to Ashwin and grimaced as Ben Foakes succumbed to a shin-high scuttler. And through it all he thought, “yeah, go on then”. And just like sitting in the passenger seat of a rally car, it was only when it was over, as Pope walked off with a generational Indian team stunned and their own supporters cheering, were you able to think, “That was amazing. What the hell happened?”
Luck played its part. Pope emerged from a skittish start that suggested a repeat of his first innings failure was in the offing. Of the 15 deliveries he took in that hellacious Bumrah spell, the seven false shots had no repercussions. There were 11 botched sweeps, reverses, laps and paddles – the most notable on 110, with the lead just 67, which was palmed in the air at short third by Axar, who failed to claim his own rebound.
Those mistakes, though, are kind of the point. Pope is a shooter, and shooters shoot. And part of being a shooter is getting opponents believing you don’t miss, even though everyone does. Which is why, though it took him 136 balls to finally nail a reverse sweep – a four off Ashwin which took him into the nineties – India’s spinners had already lost the lines and lengths that come so naturally to them.
This imposed chaos is why Pope is regarded as one of the key Bazballers, and why he was always starting despite an average of 19.12 on similar surfaces here in 2021. The sentiment outside the group was he might have been left out had Harry Brook not returned home for personal reasons. Their faith in him has never dimmed, and an average in this era that is currently eight above a career average of 36.26, might explain why. Four of his five Test centuries have come under the McCullum-Stokes axis, and this was the first where another batter has not also scored a hundred.
The retained impishness at the crease has not stifled Pope’s evolving maturity in the dressing room. Ahead of the start of play on day three, he took it upon himself as vice-captain to stand up in front of his team-mates and issue a call to action ahead of what could have been the last day of this match.
Evidently, it worked. They made light work of India’s tail, taking 3 for 15 in 11 overs, before Duckett and Zak Crawley, then Pope, had the deficit down to 101 by lunch. They targeted Axar, the scourge of England in 2021 with 27 dismissals at 10.59, who was taken for eight an over in the morning session. He would wrestle that down to 4.60, but only manage one wicket from 15 overs.
Foakes, his own day-one failure hanging above his head, held firm alongside Pope, belligerent for 81 deliveries in a vital 112-run stand that took England into the lead. From that point on, Pope paddled anyone and everyone, before bringing out the Dilscoop against Jadeja. When Bumrah returned to threaten a late hitch, Pope greeted him immediately with a sweet tuck through square leg for his final boundary of the day.
England, six down, still have plenty to do. India, for all their dismay, are still healthy favourites. The touring attack has proved nowhere near as incisive – now even more so with Jack Leach’s left knee continuing to swell through treatment. He was heavily strapped this morning and only managed one over – taken for nine runs – before being removed from the attack.
Nevertheless, the face of this match has been contorted beyond recognition in the space of a few hours. All because of Ollie Pope.
