England’s stand-in captain, Ollie Pope has rated the win over Pakistan on Friday among the top three victories his team has achieved since Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took charge of the Test side in 2021.
“Definitely it is a special win for us in the background of the match. I would rate it among the top three alongside our wins in Rawalpindi (2022) and this year in Hyderabad in India,” Pope told a media conference after his team’s massive innings victory.
England had broken number of Test records when it amassed 823/7 declared on the back of Harry Brook’s belligerent triple century and Joe Root’s impeccable 262 in reply to Pakistan’s first innings score of 556.
Pakistan folded for 220 in the second essay as England sercured an innings and 47-run win on the final day of the Test.
Pope said his team’s mantra was now that no one in the dressing room thought about the end result in a match and they tried to do their best each day.
“It is about cashing on situations when they come your way. In this match I think the way the two Yorkshiremen (Brook and Root) played out there in the heat and conditions was brilliant. Both of them produced mammoth scores and credit also to our bowlers for sticking it out in the given conditions,” he said.
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Pope, who led England in Ben Stokes absence with hamstring injury, also rejected talk about the team disrespecting the game when it lost the third and final Test to Sri Lanka at the Oval last month.
“We don’t disrespect any opposition or the game, that is all chatter that came from outside the dressing room. We never underestimated Sri Lanka, things just didn’t go the way we expected,” he added.
Pope said he was looking forward to the next two Tests as England had a very variable spin attack in Jack Leach and Shoaib Bashir who have different styles of bowling.
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