England took the field without Ollie Pope on Thursday morning as the batter continues to be assessed following a shoulder injury on day one of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s.
Pope was forced off soon after lunch, having hurt his right shoulder while diving to make a stop, and was unable to return to action for the remainder of the day.
The Surrey batter has struggled with shoulder problems in the past, but they have been with his left shoulder, which Pope dislocated while fielding against Pakistan in the summer of 2020, an injury that kept him sidelined for four months.
Crucially, because the injury is external, provided he is fit England’s vice-captain will still be allowed to bat in his usual position of No3 rather than being forced down the order. That is significant since England’s batting is already weaker than at Edgbaston, with Josh Tongue coming into the side in place of Moeen Ali, and substitutes are only permitted in the case of concussion.
Lord’s had promised ramped-up security measures in a bid to prevent further disruption after Just Stop Oil protestors launched a pitch invasion on the first morning.
Visitors arriving at the ground had to undergo more thorough bag checks, while the number of stewards stationed around the playing field wasincreased. Importantly, some stewards were also being asked to stand closer to the boundary edge, inside the LED advertising hoardings, in the hope of a swifter response should demonstrators break onto the field again.
On Wednesday, only the interventions of Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes and David Warner prevented the protestors reaching the square with their trademark orange dye before security staff were able to act.
“Me and Stokesy didn’t really know what to do,” Warner said. “We’d been warned beforehand that it might happen and for us we wanted to protect our wicket.
“It’s a touchy situation, you don’t want to be involved but we wanted to stop them getting onto the wicket. It was quite confronting because you don’t know what to do, you usually let those people run their course but because they could potentially damage the wicket we felt like we had to intervene.”
Despite morning rain in London, play started on time, with Australia 339 for five and Lord’s decked out in red on the ground’s annual fundraising day for the Ruth Strauss Foundation, the charity set up by ex-England captain Andrew Strauss in memory of his late wife.
