Making Ollie Pope England's long-term No 3 would open up a world of possibilities

[ASFN Admin]

Can Ben Foakes play alongside Jos Buttler? Can England select five specialist bowlers alongside Ben Stokes? Can Dan Lawrence be blooded lower than number three? What will Zak Crawley's long-term position be? All these questions, each central to the evolution of England’s Test side, ultimately lead to another question. Can Ollie Pope bat at number three? The question is so pertinent because of the identities of the two men above. The debate over whether Joe Root should bat at three is history; it makes no sense to compromise England’s best batsman to cover up for failings elsewhere. Beneath Root at five is Ben Stokes. Here, the debate around his best batting position is a little less clear. Stokes’s destructiveness sometimes obscures his adaptability, distilled in the three acts of his Ashes Headingley heist: the first phase of grim self-denial, taking 73 balls over his first three runs; the second phase of playing normally, adding 58 in 101 balls; and then the bedlam, ransacking 74 off 45 balls. His defence is robust enough to succeed at three: since November 2019, he is only dismissed every 174 balls when defending, the highest of any England batsman. Yet while Stokes’s credentials to bat at three are another illustration of his gifts, there are limits to what any player can reasonably be asked to do. As England’s vice-captain, number five and allrounder, Stokes is already the fulcrum of the side. While he is likely to bowl a little less in the years ahead, Stokes still gives the attack another dimension. Even Jacques Kallis preferred batting at four to three. In the eight Test innings that Stokes has played at three or four, his average is a modest 23.7. In isolation, Stokes surely has the game to succeed at three, but this would risk compromising his broader effectiveness. Five seems just right. And so if England decide, reasonably enough, that Root and Stokes are both not for moving, the question comes back to whether Pope can bat at three. If he can, it opens up myriad possibilities for the side. Barring dropping Pope - which would be a curious way to treat the most talented young England batsman since Root - using him at three is the only way to fit in both Foakes and Buttler to a Test XI. Deploying Pope at three is also the only way that England could select five specialist bowlers, using Stokes as the sixth option - a tactic that has brought great success over recent years. And it is the only way that Lawrence could be eased into Test cricket away from the cauldron of number three, mirroring Pope’s own experience since two Tests prematurely batting at number four in 2018.

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