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Ollie Pope put questions over his recent run of form to bed with a century at his home ground the Oval to steer England to a dominant position of 221 for three against Sri Lanka after the first day of the final Test of the summer.
Following the injury to Ben Stokes ahead of the visit of Sri Lanka for the three-Test series, Pope took up the mantle as stand-in captain, but while England have flourished with two wins from as many matches, his personal run tally stalled.
In the first four innings of his captaincy, his highest total was just 17, and he had three scores in single figures. But at his favoured home ground and despite being struck on the elbow twice, Pope brought up his three figures from just 102 deliveries.
Before the start of the match, Pope had an average of more than 80 at the Oval in first-class cricket, scoring 11 out of his previous 20 hundreds at the ground, largely for his county Surrey, but against Sri Lanka, he was the pick of the England batters, finishing the day unbeaten on 103.
Ben Duckett issued a strong defence of Pope after the day’s play, saying: “People are paid to give their opinion which is completely fair enough and I think I saw Popey say that last week but to go two (three) games without a big score is not a long time, facing the new ball in England, I know how tricky it can be.
“For Popey just to go out there and express himself today at a ground that he loves it’s just credit to him.”
The England opener added: ““Everyone’s so happy for anyone’s success in this dressing room, it’s an incredible place to be.
“It shouldn’t be the case, but there’s been quite a lot of noise in the last few weeks. I know what it’s like at the top of the order and he (Pope) has had a far better summer than I have and there is a lot of noise around Popey and to block that out and go and score an incredible hundred today was so good.
“You could see that from his emotions as well so we’re all extremely happy for him.”
The day had previously been marred by an almost three-hour delay that threatened the chance of further play. Both sides left the field at 12.18 pm because of bad light, which was followed by rain, and then brightened up slightly in the afternoon, allowing the players to return but conditions remained gloomy. Play was called for the day almost immediately after Pope brought up his century to a standing ovation and the players left the field just before 6pm, and play was abandoned for the day just half an hour afterwards.
Joe Root had been in exceptional form going into the game after scoring centuries in consecutive innings at Lord’s to take his number of Test centuries for England level with Sir Alastair Cook, before surpassing him in the second innings with his 34th hundred.
However, at the Oval, Root was out for 13, trying to pull the ball towards the boundary and was caught by Vishwa Fernando off the bowling of Lahiru Kumara. It was his lowest total since the second innings at Ranchi during England’s ill-fated tour of India in the winter.
Before the lengthy delay inside the first session, Dan Lawrence continued to struggle with the bat, making just five from 21 before he was caught, while at the other end, Ben Duckett delivered an entertaining 86 from 79.
Duckett’s emphatic innings included his first six off seam bowling in Test cricket, despite facing more than 1400 deliveries in the format, all his previous ones had come from facing spin bowling.
The crowd were left frustrated. When the first delay came it was just before the cut off needed for full refunds, however when play restarted, despite only 44.1 overs having taken place in the day, because it was more than the 30 overs required, those in attendance at the almost sold-out Oval will have paid full price.
