Ollie Pope says England can breach the 600-run mark in a single day’s play of Test cricket soon
England Test batter Ollie Pope threw his weight behind the ‘Bazball approach’ that his team takes and said the Test team is well within the line to breach the 600-run mark in a single day’s play.
England hold the record for most runs scored in a day when they scored 588/6 against India in Manchester in 1936 but that was way before the ‘Bazball’ era.
In recent times, England scored 506/4 against Pakistan at Rawalpindi in December 2022. England went on to win the Test match by 74 runs.
The ‘Bazball’ is a term coined after England Test team coach Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum’s aggressive approach that the team adopts.
Pope, who is a part of England’s squad playing against the West Indies, said the team is well poised to score big in a day’s play. “Sometimes we might score 280 to 300 in a day but that’s okay 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 said ahead of the third Test match against the West Indies.
England and West Indies play the third Test at Edgbaston, Birmingham, from July 26. England won the first two Test matches – first by an innings and 114 runs at Lord’s and the second by 241 runs at Trent Bridge, Nottingham.
In the Trent Bridge Test, England scored more than 400 runs in both innings of a Test match for the first time. Pope (121 in the first innings), Joe Root and Harry Brook scored centuries in the Test match to help England amass huge totals in both innings.
Pope, however, added that the aggressive approach is now a natural part of their game style. “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. We put on just over 400 in the third innings of the game and had we not done that it might have been a closer affair in the end. 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. But being ruthless is being part of Test cricket as well,” Pope, who is the vice-captain of the team, added.
