"There might also be a day where we go and get 500 to 600 at some point in the future as well" - Ollie Pope on 'ruthless' England's attacking limit
England Test team vice-captain Ollie Pope feels that the day when a team posts 600 runs on board on a single day of Test is not far away. The Ben Stokes-led side have adopted a bit more diluted form of Bazball in the ongoing home series against the West Indies, which is serving them well.
England have claimed an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series following a thumping 241-run win at Trent Bridge. The team had to bring their attacking game down just a touch following their 1-4 series loss against India. However, they showed that they could crank the scoring at will after amassing 50 runs in just 4.2 overs in the first innings of the recent second Test.
The team took less than 100 overs on each occasion to surpass the 400-run score at Trent Bridge, with Ollie Pope playing a key hand with his first-innings ton at a strike rate of 72.46.
'There’s a real hunger - there always is a hunger - but now there's an extra bit in that batting line-up. We want to be as ruthless as we can as a batting unit, but still play the way we do because that's our natural game. Obviously being ruthless is being part of Test cricket as well," Pope said ahead of the third Test of the series
"I got asked on day one at Trent Bridge 'do you get told to play like that?'. No, we don't. It's just our natural games and the way we go about it. Sometimes we might score 280 to 300 in a day but that's OK and probably because we're reading situations. There might also be a day where we go and get 500 to 600 at some point in the future as well. And that's a cool thing to have," Pope added
England will aim for a whitewash and a further boost in their World Test Championship (WTC) standings with a win over the visitors in the series finale in Edgbaston, Birmingham.
England scored 506 runs on the opening day of their tour of Pakistan in 2022
In the early days of Bazball, England were on a hot streak after defeating New Zealand and South Africa at home. There were doubts regarding whether the aggressive approach would work in subcontinent conditions, and the tour of Pakistan in late 2022 was considered to be Bazball's biggest challenge at that point.
However, on the very first day of the tour, England made the most of a flat deck in Rawalpindi to amass 506 runs and assert their dominance. On that occasion, the likes of Crawley, Duckett, Brook, and Pope all scored hundreds to help the side post 657 on the board. The visitors went on to win the series 3-0 as well.