Test series between England and South Africa are endangered beasts. There is just one, three matches in length, on the Future Tours Programme between now and the end of 2027. Just 32 overs here at Lord’s yesterday was enough to remind us what a pity that is.
When these teams last met, just before the pandemic, Ollie Pope was the poster boy of a promising England team. In three Tests on that tour (he missed the first due to illness), he made a maiden hundred and two more fifties to leave with an average in the high forties. The praise was gushing; Ben Stokes said that whichever batting records Joe Root set, Pope would break.
