When Zak Crawley presented Ollie Pope with his 50th Test cap in Multan a few weeks ago, the opening batter reminisced about their schoolboy days and made two striking statements. With a playful tone, Crawley joked about how they "run Clapham together" and described Pope as "one of the best players in the world." Two weeks is a long time in Test cricket, as Shan Masood and his Pakistan side know all too well, but it's a testament to Pope's poor tour that the latter statement would now likely elicit a more prolonged eye-roll.
Pundits, former players, and fans are questioning Pope's suitability to bat at No 3, especially with upcoming series against history-making New Zealand, India, and Australia. Pope's supporters could point to his centuries against Sri Lanka and West Indies during the home summer, and his 196 against India at Hyderabad in January, a masterpiece of batting on the subcontinent and one of England's great overseas Test innings in recent memory. However, his detractors would present a dossier of low scores, skittish starts, and an apparent failure to fully understand his own game despite having played over 50 Tests. They might also note that Pope is nearly 27, has been in the Test side for six years, been made Test vice-captain, and led the side in Ben Stokes's absence without instilling a sense of permanence.
Pope's Test output is temperamental; when he's good, he's very good (Hyderabad and the Oval 2024, Port Elizabeth 2020), but when he's bad, he's horrid – his Pakistan series ended with an average of 11, he averages 15 against Australia and 24 against India. Despite the scrutiny, Brendon McCullum and Stokes will likely back him to find form and consistency, not least because there's no one battering the door down to take the No 3 spot from inside or outside the squad.
It's clear Joe Root doesn't want to move up from four, despite often finding himself as a makeshift No 3 and scoring a double century from that position in the first Test at Multan. Jamie Smith and Harry Brook are just starting their Test careers and have done well in the middle order, so any tinkering with them will be approached with extreme caution. Stokes is the only other player from within the camp being considered as a makeshift No 3. He has the all-round game the position demands and has shown on numerous occasions that he possesses an ironclad defense and a powerful attack, albeit sometimes not necessarily showcasing all the gears between the two.
The timing seems off though. England's captain cut a curiously subdued and uncharacteristically frustrated figure in the last two matches. The third Test in Rawalpindi was his worst as captain, a ponderous nadir to his leadership zenith at the same venue in 2022. His bowling is clearly (and understandably) a long way from being serviceable, he didn't bowl at all in the third Test even when England were desperate for a breakthrough to limit Pakistan's first-innings lead, and he's going through a lean patch with the bat this calendar year. Averaging 24 with a highest score of 70 in his 10 Test matches, Stokes scored 15 runs in Rawalpindi and got out in England's second innings in a befuddling manner, leaving a ball from Noman Ali to thud into his box slap-bang in front of all three stumps with the game on the line.
For all their obvious strengths, England have plenty of weaknesses, most obviously against spin bowling and on wickets that are not conducive to their high-octane brand of stroke-play. They've also suffered as a result of not being able to polish off opposition tails with games wagging out of their reach as they struggle to get themselves and their opponents off the park.
"I have learned from my mistakes and I am sure I can repeat them exactly." There was even a whiff of Peter Cook absurdity about the England coach, Brendon McCullum, after the series was lost. "Zak [Crawley] was brilliant for us," he said of the opener who scored 78 in the run-fest first Test in Multan and then had his returns torpedoed, falling to Noman Ali's left-arm spin four times in a row. It was the sort of baffling head-in-sand proclamation that means while England entertain and enthrall like no other, they frustrate in the same way too.
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