I want to talk numbers with Ollie Pope. Yes, we’ll get to that Test No 3 spot, where he is averaging 41.63 and striking at a breezy 75 over the past year. After a nightmare Ashes tour, he was the kid whose potential wasn’t turning into something substantial. Now he’s a staple of the future England captain conversation.
But since we’re at the Oval, in view of the field he spends more time on than any other, let’s begin with these figures. After 35 first-class innings on this ground, the Surrey batter has hit 11 hundreds and strummed 2,552 runs at an average of (drum roll) 94.51. So, Ollie, how often do you think about that average when you’re batting here?
“Never,” says the 25-year-old. “It never goes through my mind. I think in the last year or so I’ve stopped worrying about stats as much.” Can he explain his dominance in south London? “Not really. In the past we’ve played on some very flat wickets, and I’ve cashed in probably two or three times.”
But even when the Oval track has looked more nibbly recently, helping the cause of Surrey’s seamers – “We wanted to win titles, and you’ve got to do that by taking 20 wickets every week” – Pope has still found a way. He trusts the bounce, relishes the quick outfield, and there’s this too: “I think I’ve just become a better player over the last two years.”
The 2021-22 Ashes, when he was dropped two Tests in and then recalled for the Hobart finale, was a turning point. “I tried to tinker with my technique mid-series, which ended up making life a lot harder for me, especially when I came back into that last Test.”
Bowled around his legs by Pat Cummins after a shuffle to the off side, Pope finished up with 67 runs from six innings. “I was trying to basically be a batter that I wasn’t. And that was probably the worst thing for me at the time.”
Pope went to work on his game and returned to the XI as soon as Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes started calling the shots. Cue the feelgood montage: 10 wins in 12 Tests, Pope an ever-present and a couple of Test tons in a new role at No 3.
“If I was being completely honest, it was the first time I felt like I could bat at 3, for England or for Surrey,” he says, casting his mind back to the start of last summer. “I felt like I had a game that was suited to it from the work that I had put in after the Ashes series on my defence and leaving.”
While Pope talks about his improvement at leaving the ball, it is his flair that makes him a natural fit for England. While he hasn’t flayed international attacks like Jonny Bairstow or Harry Brook, the hallmark shots still elicit oohs and ahhs. Then there’s the other calling card to dissect: his skip down the pitch to attack the quicks. The feet were particularly quick last month as Pope followed a fighting 91 with an express 122 not out against a Hampshire attack featuring pedigree bowlers in Mohammad Abbas and Kyle Abbott.
The forward charge has echoes of McCullum’s own brawn back in the day, but the key influence is Joe Root and his fourth-innings hundred against New Zealand at Lord’s last summer. “I was watching him face [Tim] Southee, and I was like: ‘How does Rooty get so many bad balls?’ That’s exactly why, because he was doing this walk down the wicket and clip through midwicket to their best balls.”
Sometimes the move down the pitch is to help his defence when it’s nipping about. Other times, it’s more of a statement. “For guys like Abbas and Abbott, who just constantly hit away at a length – I guess you have that a lot in international cricket as well – it’s my way of putting pressure back on them. I’ve sort of worked out that if they bowl their best ball there I can hit their best ball for four.”
This leads to bowlers going short, Pope says, allowing him to pull and cut away. “That’s my theory behind it. It’s that positive approach that has been inspired by McCullum and Stokes in seeing the runs rather than the wickets.”
His reverence for the England captain is clear. “Whatever he says, he’s got the backing 100% of every man in that changing room.” When Pope picks out a couple of highlights from the last year, Stokes’s leadership is part of both tales. Facing a short-ball barrage, Bairstow was following orders during his blistering 136 against New Zealand in Nottingham – “Stokesy was like: ‘Mate, just keep planting it into the crowd,’” says Pope.
When it came to making a game of it in Rawalpindi against Pakistan, declaring to set the hosts a target of 343 on a barren surface, Pope initially had doubts. “We were sat there kind of like: ‘Really? It’s still a road, this pitch.’ Then it was just the clarity Stokesy had in his mind with: ‘We’re going to go short at them with the new ball, then we’re going to get it reversing.’ To win it, just before the sun set, was one of the greatest feelings I’ve had on a pitch.”
Now to an Ashes summer and to the hopes of an exhilarating contest against the backdrop of a rapidly changing game, with the relevance of the long form under threat. While McCullum’s men seem hellbent on putting up a final stand, does Pope worry about Test cricket’s future? “I don’t necessarily worry about it. But at the same time we’re realising what we can do to help it and I guess, in a way, it’s almost bigger than what we’re just doing as a team. We want to inspire younger generations to want to grow up and play Test cricket.
“With the money in these leagues at the minute, that is appealing as well, but there’s no reason why players can’t do both. Look at a guy like Harry Brook, he’s just gone for one-point-whatever million and he’s also smashing it in Test cricket.”
The five-day game, for Pope, remains the pinnacle. “There’s so many people that still think like that and want to play Test cricket.”
A solitary outing against Ireland next month is the first task before the Ashes, concluding in late July at the Oval. For all of Pope’s excellence, a Test century in his own manor still awaits. The stats don’t matter as much any more but this would certainly mean something. “Oh yeah,” he says, cracking a smile at the thought. “That would be nice.”
