England’s stand-in Test captain kept himself busy on his first day, and he was not short of advice at Old Trafford
Ollie Pope leads England out at Old Trafford, his first day as Test captain in place of the injured Ben Stokes.Ollie Pope leads England out at Old Trafford, his first day as Test captain in place of the injured Ben Stokes.
This was Pope’s time to shine. The day had begun with a pre-match huddle that had as many speakers as a night at the Democratic national convention, and incidentally as many voluntarily deposed former leaders named Joe. Ben Stokes spoke at length, Brendon McCullum followed, and Pope as stand-in captain indicated that he knew both his place and the limits of his audience’s patience with some brief concluding remarks, which presumably amounted to: “What they said.
Pope’s brightness, meanwhile, remained undimmed. He had lost his first international toss, but any concern that he might be an unlucky leader lasted only as long as it took Dhananjaya de Silva to volunteer for the fate England had planned for him anyway by choosing to bat. And so Pope took to the field, and got busy.
At first it all seemed so easy. Dimuth Karunaratne top-edged a pull off Gus Atkinson and was caught behind; Nishan Madushka nicked Chris Woakes to slip; Angelo Mathews was trapped lbw after a mystifying leave, and the first three wickets of the match had fallen before Sri Lanka reached double figures. The last and only time a team batting first in England had lost three wickets for fewer runs it was 1896.
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