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He had moved to the country to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, but has now become part of USA cricket’s folklore

Shashank Kishore07-Jun-20241:19

Jaffer: Saurabh Netravalkar’s got a great story

In 2010, Saurabh Netravalkar endured heartbreak against Pakistan in the quarter-final of the Under-19 World Cup in Christchurch. Babar Azam was in the opponent’s camp that day, as Pakistan pipped India by two wickets in a rain-affected thriller.Fourteen years later, he had the opportunity to win for his new country, the USA, a T20 World Cup game against Pakistan. Tasked to bowl the Super Over, Netravalkar defended 18 as USA recorded a famous win that gives them a great chance of securing an entry into the Super Eights.If they do – they still have two more games against Ireland and India – Netravalkar may have to extend his official leave at his day job, which is set to end on June 17, by a couple of weeks at the very least. It’s likely he will never have to explain to his American colleagues the reason for it.Related

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All he will need to do is direct them to one of the many Instagram reels that have already popped up about this geeky Indian guy who moved to the USA to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering but has now become part of USA cricket’s folklore.Netravalkar, 32, harboured the dream of playing for India for the longest time. He was a bristling left-arm quick who rattled Yuvraj Singh’s stumps at the NCA in Bengaluru way back in 2009 while on Air India’s sports scholarship. The next thing he knew was that delivery had earned him a ticket to play in the then-prestigious BCCI Corporate Trophy.He was suddenly sharing a dressing room with Yuvraj, Suresh Raina and Robin Uthappa, all India stars by then. A certain Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni were among those in the opponent camp. Netravalkar, not yet 18 then, finished the tournament as the joint-highest wicket-taker and was on the plane with the Indian team for the Under-19 World Cup, alongside the likes of KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Jaydev Unadkat, Mandeep Singh and Harshal Patel.Playing in that tournament meant missing the entire first semester exams of his Computer Engineering degree that he had enrolled for six months earlier. That was the first big call he had needed to make in his cricket career.Netravalkar had hoped his performance in the World Cup – he was India’s highest wicket-taker in the competition – would pave the way for a berth in the senior Mumbai set-up, and perhaps even an IPL contract. The opportunities for Mumbai were few and far between, with Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Aavishkar Salvi and a young Dhawal Kulkarni making it difficult for the youngster to break in.Netravalkar finally made his Ranji Trophy debut in 2013. Incidentally, he had just made another tough call only a few months earlier. He had given up a job as a software testing engineer in Pune to go all-in on cricket for the next two years.But being in and out of the set-up even after two years pushed him to make another call when he received an offer for admission from Cornell University in New York in August 2015. His strong academic credentials and keen interest in cricket, which helped him develop a player-analysis app CricDecode, had earned him a scholarship.As he finished graduate school, Netravalkar was offered a job by Oracle in San Francisco. Having moved to the country without his cricket kit, Netravalkar began playing recreational cricket on the weekends as a way to “fit in with the Indian community”.In 2016, he represented the North West Region at the USACA National Championship. He kicked his efforts into high gear, seeking out as many opportunities to play as possible when the ICC lowered their minimum residency for eligibility from four years to three.Saurabh Netravalkar and his family are delighted after USA’s historic win•ICC/Getty ImagesA sensational spell for Southern California Cricket Association XI against a USA XI in a national-team warm-up match in the summer of 2017 impressed then-coach Pubudu Dassanayake. In January 2018, he made his List A debut for USA, taking 2 for 45 against Leeward Islands. It was as if the life had come full circle.Today, Netravalkar is among a few USA national team players who are regulars in Major League Cricket. Last year, he was the third-highest wicket-taker for Washington Freedom at the inaugural edition, which included a sensational 6 for 9 against a San Francisco Unicorns side boasting the likes of Matthew Wade, Marcus Stoinis and Shadab Khan. He would soon bowl to Shadab again: the final ball of the Super Over on Thursday to clinch the win for USA.Next week, Netravalkar will play against Rohit Sharma, his senior in Mumbai cricket at one point. He will also renew rivalries with Kohli, who he tussled with all those years ago. He wouldn’t need to prove to anybody anymore what playing cricket means. He will have videos of him bowling to cricketing royalty to show for it.

First hundred as Ben Stokes stand-in reaffirms credentials of England’s No. 3

Andrew Miller06-Sep-2024For three hours on Friday afternoon, the Kia Oval was as dank as dank can be. The weather was as void as a day-five Test ticket; a blanket of moderate, moist nothingness enveloping London even as an apocalyptic downpour rumbled through the Surrey hills, several miles to the south. It was a microcosm of the modern English Test summer, a permanent hostage to more potent weather patterns elsewhere in the globe.For Ollie Pope, however, it proved to be the perfect place to be stuck in the doldrums.Pope was 14 not out from 21 balls when, at 12.18pm, the umpires bowed to the bleakness and pulled the teams from the field. Already he had produced his best innings of the series, not quite in terms of runs (that, for the time being, remained his 17 in the second innings at Lord’s), but in terms of that elusive parameter “intent” – which, as his recent dismissals could attest, can be a fickle, double-headed beast.It had been “intent”, after all, that did for Pope in each of the first two Tests, including the top-edged uppercut that flew straight to deep point as England pushed for quick runs in that most-recent innings. And it was “intent” that lured each of England’s three dismissed batters to their doom at The Oval – including Ben Duckett, who died as he had lived during his anarchic knock of 86 from 79 balls by playing one scoop too many, almost as if it were a tribute to Joe Root’s own obsession with the stroke in recent times.Related

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And likewise, there was Dan Lawrence, onto whom that ever-roving media spotlight is sure now to fall after five increasingly sketchy auditions as a Test-match opener. In fact, Lawrence’s botched pull to gully had an awful lot in common with Pope’s first-innings extraction at Lord’s – “a long-hop that needed to be hit for four,” as Duckett recalled it in his defence of his captain’s up-and-at-’em approach.For some reason, the sins elsewhere in England’s batting approach are considered more forgivable. It’s as if Pope’s flighty footwork early in an innings, and his propensity to make decent deliveries look unplayable, are character flaws rather than technical ones. A manifestation of “weakness” in the literal sense, rather than just a slight deficiency in his alignment.However, the narrative moves almost as quickly as the scoreboard in this England regime, and by the time the bleakness descended over the Oval again, Pope had lifted his own gloom in the manor to which his career has been born. It’s early days to claim he is “synonymous” with The Oval – Jack Hobbs and Alec Stewart won’t be surrendering their gates just yet – but this first Test hundred at his home ground was also the 12th of a first-class career in which he averages in excess of 83.68 at the venue.That’s better than Mahela Jayawardene’s record at the SSC (a venue at which he truly is synonymous), not to mention every other batter to have dominated a single first-class venue since 2000, including Mark Ramprakash, another Surrey and England cricketer whose domestic dominance also attracted askance suggestions that he wasn’t quite cutting it at the highest level.

“As for proving he had the requisite character for this job, even Pope’s hardest-to-please critics would struggle to fault a matchwinning century to cap a 3-0 series sweep”

Reading between the lines, that statistic perhaps explains some of the unsually intense scrutiny that Pope has attracted of late. It was only 24 hours earlier, after all, that Brendon McCullum, England’s Test coach, had been spelling out the real and lasting differences between the requirements at Test and county level, as a means of justifying Josh Hull’s selection on the strength of two Championship wickets at 182.50 this season.Three summers ago, on the other hand, Pope had been averaging a literally Bradman-esque 99.94 at The Oval, only to return from the 2021-22 Ashes with 67 deeply skittish runs at 11.16, a performance that made one of the most visceral cases yet for the extent to which England’s first-class system had been letting down its best young talent. Some of the residual criticism he attracts could well stem from him being a symptom, not a cause, of England’s previous struggles. In an era of renewed batting success, he’s not yet proven which mould he truly belongs to.Roll the tape forward another two years, however, and we’re starting to peer down the other end of the telescope. Pope’s recent “struggles”, if that is even the right word, hark back to the single greatest performance of his lifetime, and many others’ combined: that preposterous 196 in England’s first-Test victory over India in Hyderabad in March, when he swapped his hard-handed defensive prods for swishy-wristed reverse-sweeps for ones, twos and fours, and propelled this regime to one of their greatest overseas Test wins of all time.Never mind that his returns dipped for the rest of that tour as India’s spinners wised up, Pope’s apparent loss of equilibrium since Hyderabad was best expressed by his early-season displays for Surrey right here at The Oval: 156 runs at 26, and just one half-century in seven innings. But, as if to prove that the Hull Paradox is now England’s lodestar, he quickly put all that behind him with a century at the second attempt against West Indies (albeit he still gave the impression that something wasn’t quite right with his game).This, however, is a far more emphatic retort. A first Test century as England captain, and the second-fastest by an England captain too, from a racey 102 balls. Uniquely, it also made him the first player in history to score each of his first seven centuries against different opponents – a sign of his versatility on the one hand, but maybe also of his failure to grasp any single series by the throat, in the manner that might be expected of an international No. 3.Ollie Pope was proactive on the way to his fastest Test hundred•Getty ImagesNevertheless, it’s been a dizzying few weeks for England’s stand-in skipper, who has already led the Test team on three more occasions than he has ever led Surrey in the County Championship. Ben Stokes tried to warn him in advance about the accompanying uptick in press scrutiny, but that reached quite the crescendo during last week’s Lord’s Test, when Michael Vaughan unleashed the sort of character assassination that can be hard to live down – especially if you are, as Vaughan put it, “not the kind of personality” that should be leading his country in a Test match.Unless, of course, you can respond as he did here, on the patch of south London real estate that he knows better than any of his contemporaries. Pope’s internalised response to the moment of his three figures spoke volumes for the pressure he’s been under, as he roared with initial glee before scrunching it down into a deeply relieved, and no doubt satisfied, moment of self-reflection. And much as he’d been leading the glee on the Lord’s balcony for the feats of Root and Gus Atkinson last week, it was left to his team-mates to truly let rip with the celebrations.”Everyone’s so happy for anyone’s success in this dressing room, it’s an incredible place to be,” Duckett said. “It shouldn’t be the case, but there has been quite a lot of noise around Popey in the last few weeks. The only judgment I’ve seen is that he’s taken over as Test captain, and you only have to look at an innings like today [to see] that’s had no impact on him.”Sure, he had some luck – not least with the ropey efforts of a Sri Lanka seam attack that, in the generous assessment of their bowling coach, Aaqib Javed, got “overexcited” by the possibilities on such a dank day. On another day, his misjudged steer through the cordon would have gone to hand, but in riding out three blows to his elbow, the first of which drew blood and required lengthy treatment, he also showed it was no picnic out there, in spite of his fondness for this particular patch of grass. As for proving he had the requisite character for this job, even his hardest-to-please critics would struggle to fault a matchwinning century to cap a 3-0 series sweep.”I know what it’s like at the top of the order, and he’s had a far better summer than I have,” Duckett added. “The fact of the matter is he’s batting No. 3 in England, which is one of the toughest spots to bat in. To block that out and go and score an incredible hundred today was so good, and you could see that from his emotions as well. We’re all extremely happy for him.”

Shan Masood was gushing in his praise of South Africa’s quicks, but extreme pace is currently off the cards for his side

Danyal Rasool06-Jan-2025If someone told you Pakistan had lost 20 successive Test matches in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were talking about rugby. But after Pakistan slipped to another Test defeat in the watery evening sunshine of Cape Town, they ensured that ignominious statistic had reached a nice round number.There isn’t a single explanation for a run that stretches back to 2013, but it is possible to be more specific when it comes to this particular Test at Newlands, and Shan Masood certainly was. He paid rich tribute to South Africa’s pace bowlers, acknowledging he was impressed they kept their speeds up, despite bowling 176.3 consecutive overs to dismiss Pakistan twice. Pakistan, meanwhile, had no bowler that truly came close to the pace of Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, and Kwena Maphaka.”SA bowled really well in both innings,” Masood said. “Their pace was up. That has been a key difference in this series. If you look at our first innings, 132-135 [kph] not carrying to the slips compared to 138-144 when Maphaka was bowling. Those are the balls that beat the batter or hit you on the pads. That is a difference and it is something we want to do in Test cricket as well.”Related

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Six years ago in Cape Town, another Pakistan captain sat in the Newlands press box, and was coruscating about his bowlers’ lack of pace. South Africa had just knocked off a routine fourth innings run chase, and Sarfaraz Ahmed compared his own bowlers unfavourably to South Africa’s.”If you talk about our bowling and their bowling, I think there’s a big difference in the two,” Sarfaraz had said. “The way our bowlers are bowling is not up to the mark in this Test match. If you see our bowlers, they’re bowling 128-129, and the average speed is 130, while their bowlers are bowling at 145. If you are going to bowl with that lack of pace here you won’t get wickets.”I don’t know what’s going on there. Previously it happened, too, when I came here in 2013, the same problem occurred. At the time we had [Mohammad] Irfan, Umar Gul and Tanvir Ahmed. Their pace was down too. I don’t know what’s happening here in Cape Town.”But while those comments may have been intended as a public rebuke to Mohammad Amir and Shaheen Afridi, the variance in pace didn’t come as a surprise to Masood. Pakistan opted against playing their only express seamer – Naseem Shah – in Cape Town under circumstances that are, at best, murky, vaguely citing a back issue and chest congestion. It left Pakistan with a bowling attack of four men who could only really be described as medium fast: Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Abbas, Mir Hamza and Aamer Jamal’s average pace was between 125kph and 132kph, with not a single ball bowled over 140kph.On the second day during the tea break, however, Naseem was on a practice pitch a few strips across from the playing surface, bowling at full pelt – significantly quicker than any of the starting squad, unencumbered by the sorts of fitness issues that ostensibly kept him out. Similarly, Afridi, the other bowler with Test pedigree who could have brought higher pace, was given leave to play the Bangladesh Premier League, despite the PCB insisting national duty took first priority.It remains unclear whether he was dropped or made himself unavailable, but the result remains the same: South Africa had bowlers who ensured their pace remained high, while Pakistan fielded a quartet who physically could not.”The clear difference was the fast bowling where they bowled a lot of overs at decent pace,” Masood said. “We have to look at a lot of other things in our set-up. How to keep the quicks fresh, how to get an extra batter in the squad. Like Aamer Jamal, if we can find another bowler who’s a good bowler and batter. Like South Africa have Marco Jansen. He’s good with the bat and very good with the ball. If we can find a few cricketers like that, it’d be good for our Test make-up as well where we can play that extra spinner.”They were pretty decent with reverse swing, too. Even today, when Maphaka came on before the second new ball, his pace was up. Jansen’s a superb cricketer, Rabada’s one of the greatest bowlers to play the game. On the fast bowling front, in the first Test, they had [Dane] Paterson: a wily customer, clever, skilled and experienced. I thought their fast-bowling department was really good.”It is an unusual position for Pakistan to find themselves in. Having waxed lyrical about the strength and depth of its their pace attack over the years, Pakistan must now contend with the suddenly denuded nature of their Test pace cabinet. While just two months ago, they fielded an electric high pace attack comprising Afridi, Naseem, Mohammad Hasnain and Haris Rauf, they find themselves in a situation where their desire to play Test cricket hovers between varying degrees of reluctance. Rauf pushed that recalcitrance to the extreme when he refused to tour Australia for a three-Test series last year, and briefly lost his central contract, while Hasnain has not played first-class cricket since a county stint in 2022.It makes it tricky to work out what a lost series in South Africa means. Pakistan appear to have shifted away from using pace at home, famously defeating England 2-1 in October with a spin-heavy strategy. When West Indies visit later this month for two Tests, a similar strategy will be followed, with high-pace likely non-existent. It may mean Pakistan have reconciled themselves to opting out of matching countries like South Africa for pace when they show up here, or in Australia.This tour of South Africa could end up being a harbinger of that. It remains to be seen whether such a deal – which with their history and culture may be viewed as almost Faustian – is one their supporters will simply have to resign themselves to.

It was a deeply physical Test that stretched these modern-day gladiators to their limits, till India experienced heartbreak in slow-motion and England celebrated a win that might not have been

Sidharth Monga15-Jul-2025

Shoaib Bashir is engulfed by team-mates after he picked up the last wicket•Getty Images

It is nearing 7pm on a balmy London evening. The sun is shining bright on Lord’s. Water sprinklers are on. The ground staff have dusted off the pitch all the loose dirt and debris and the pieces of spirit and heart left on it. It is covered now.It is a little over two hours after the epic finish to the Test between England and India, witnessed by a raucous day-five crowd built not of rich patrons and MCC members only who can afford tickets starting at 170 quid, but ordinary-class folk taking advantage of tickets worth 25 quid.The Indians’ balcony is deserted. Shoaib Bashir still sits in the England balcony, looking out at the stage of the great Test. At 4.53pm, Bashir bowled the ball to break India’s hearts. With a broken finger on the left hand, sustained when trying to stop a powerful straight hit from Ravindra Jadeja in the first innings, he came out to bowl as a last resort.Related

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India’s last two wickets were threatening to break England down. Ben Stokes had bowled spells of nine and ten overs. Jofra Archer, playing his first Test in four years, had roused himself to bowl arguably the ball of the series to get rid of the biggest threat, Rishabh Pant. Stokes had bowled one to match it, nipping it up the hill to get rid of the wall, KL Rahul, who scored 100 and 39 in the Test.Jadeja, though, was threatening to do the improbable. Whittle down the target one run at a time in the company of Jasprit Bumrah first and Mohammed Siraj later. Siraj had been there in England’s faces all Test. He was putting his body on the line now. He stood resolute with Jadeja. When an Archer short ball stayed low, he wore it on his left biceps. And there wasn’t enough pace in the pitch to regularly threaten him of physical harm.And then, 5.2 overs before the second new ball and 22 runs separating the two teams, the lethal blow came. In slow motion. Siraj defended the offbreak fairly well, off the middle of the bat really, but he played it with such soft hands that it topspun after dropping on the pitch towards the wickets. Immediately I texted “Srinath 1999” to those not at Lord’s. They had visualised the heartbreak even before they saw it on the telly.Siraj instinctively stuck his left leg out to try to kick it away, but missed. A football fan missed. Hawk-Eye doesn’t provide you these trajectories. Had it continued in a straight line, the ball would have missed the leg stump, but it turned the other way on the second bounce, then slowly tickled the leg stump with just enough force to knock one bail over.A soft, delicate end brought to a violent Test match where Pant nearly broke a finger, which ended Bashir’s series, where Ollie Pope and Siraj copped blows, a reminder of the irony of how hard the “soft” cricket balls still are. Stokes would later say the celebrations were most subdued for a Test that went into the final session of the final day and one they won by just 22 runs.Zak Crawley and Joe Root console a distraught Mohammed Siraj as India fell 22 runs short•Getty ImagesIn what seemed like just 30 seconds, they turned their attention to Siraj, who would go on to punch his bat hard. Siraj, who had earlier been booked for a send-off to one of them. Siraj, who was leading the sledging when Zak Crawley tried to run the clock down on the third evening. Siraj, who now had a tear in his eye. Siraj, now being consoled by them. Joe Root, whom he drew nine false shots out of in one spell without taking his wicket, was among the first ones to go to him.It was as much exhaustion as it was empathy. A competitor they respected, one who had got out in an unfortunate manner. Two marathoners in a photo finish. The winner checking on the one who came second, almost thankful that they pushed each other.

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It is 8pm, and the sun is still out, although there have been patches of cloud in between. The sprinklers have stopped. England are still there celebrating although not out on the balcony. The ground staff are over by their shed, celebrating rolling out a pitch that has been as much a hero as the main cast. The first two Tests contrived to produce excitement in the end. This one had just enough in it for the bowlers to make each day exciting without making batting perilous.Runs came at only 3.08 an over. There was a session of just 51 runs and one wicket that had more tension and drama in it than a day full of runs on a flat pitch can have. There were moans about over rates and player behaviour, but these are elite cricketers just competing at their fiercest and most intense in one of the hottest Tests at Lord’s.It was a deeply physical Test played by some battered players. Bumrah, who must preserve his body if he wants to continue playing Test cricket, bowled 43 overs in the match, only behind Stokes, only by one over. Stokes, about whom his team worries he gets carried away and bowls spells that are too long. Archer, with no miles in his legs, struggled to hold length, but showed what raw pace can do: when he got it right, he took five wickets in just 36 false shots.Tempers frayed more than once, but that can happen when alite players are giving it their all•Associated PressJust like life, the game can be unfair. India created more chances throughout the match, which is often enough to win Tests. Bumrah bowled more good balls than anyone, but ended up with just seven wickets in 82 false shots.India swung the ball more, bowled a higher percentage of high-seam deliveries, stayed on good lengths for longer, kept England in the field for longer, but England seized the brief windows of opportunities to inflict maximum damage. Just like India were on day four, England’s bowlers were relentless on day five. They didn’t have the added threat of spin that India had with the old ball, so it was imperative they got into the tail before the ball went soft.On the fourth evening, Brydon Carse sensed India were not quite picking full lengths early enough, and bowled 63% balls fuller than good length to take two wickets, one of them Shubman Gill. Archer, dismissively charged at by Pant, channelled his anger to find the perfect length and just enough seam against the angle from around the wicket. Running on fumes, Chris Woakes produced a peach to get rid of Nitish Kumar Reddy in the last over before the final lunch break, with the ball beginning to go soft.When the ball did go soft, India just didn’t have enough batting to punish the bowlers, who kept coming hard at them, over after over, even when they knew they had a wicket-taking opportunity for one or two balls every over. In that session, they just outlasted Jadeja.There was a time when India had lost seven second-innings wickets in just 30 false shots, reminiscent of the 36 all out in Adelaide when they were bowled out in 32.1:07

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Then again, they should never have been in this position. Fourth innings on deteriorating pitches are often lotteries. In the second innings, they had England where they wanted them, but the pursuit of a personal milestone before a break got the better of them.It was not necessarily selfish. It was an error. A human imperfection. A reminder that the game is not played by robots. India will acknowledge they need to learn, but must the lessons always be this harsh?

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It is almost 9pm. The teams have left. There is a ceasefire for a week. As there is every evening actually. It is this break and then the resumption of the contest from the same position that makes Test cricket special.On the third evening, the two sides were going at each other as though they might need an actual ceasefire. Only for Rahul to say minutes later that he could empathise with what Crawley was doing: running the clock down to play as few balls as possible when India tried to get as many in as possible before stumps.Hostilities resume and cease, flow of time has its say on conditions, human imperfections and brilliance dance together, endurance and sharp bursts both matter. Every once in a while, they all conspire to create a result as magical as the one at Lord’s: only the ninth Test in 2594 to be tied on first innings, two teams separated by just 22 runs after 15 sessions of attrition, ending in the most poignant and chaotic of manners, a solid defensive shot by a No. 11 rolling onto the stumps.Outside Lord’s, nothing much has changed. The No. 13 to Baker Street Station is not on time but it does arrive. It marries seamlessly with the Metropolitan Line tube to Farringdon and the Thameslink from there to Herne Hill. It doesn’t feel like the usual long journey. The mind is engaged. It is basking in the Test. It will take a while before it stops doing so.

England’s incumbent has been given the backing of his captain for now, but he knows he needs to produce

Vithushan Ehantharajah19-Jun-2025Ollie Pope’s journey as an England cricketer began against India in 2018. Seven years on, as he prepares to lock horns with them once more, we might finally be about to find out what he’s about.There’s an important differentiation. Because after 56 Tests, all we know of Pope is what he does. A bit of everything, really. Some bits he’s done before, others he has not. He’s become English cricket’s own handyman. And a damn good one.That debut at Lord’s came at No.4, despite having made his case at No.6 for Surrey. The selectors saw a 20-year-old wunderkind and sought to let him loose. His first walk out to the middle in England creams was also the first time he had gone into bat in the first 20 overs of an innings.He is by no means a full-time wicketkeeper, yet he donned the gloves in Pakistan in 2022 and New Zealand in 2024 to help the team out of issues of illness and injury. He has deputised for Ben Stokes as captain on four occasions and won three.His recent active, altruistic service has included three years (and counting?) at No.3, smoothing over a problem position by being the responsible one when, deep down, he’d much rather hang with the rest of the dashers in the middle order. And it is this reason that even external talk of jeopardy around Pope’s position, ultimately triggered by the internal temptation to throw the latest wunderkind, Jacob Bethell, into the mix, had Stokes on the front foot a day out from Headingley’s series opener.”It would be remarkable to choose someone else if their last knock was a one-seventy (171),” Stokes said, thrusting Pope’s last knock against Zimbabwe like a shiv, in response to a question on whether there was a decision to be made at first drop. “And that’s pretty much all I need to say on that.”Ollie Pope received his Test cap from Alec Stewart at Lord’s in 2018•Getty ImagesStokes’ admiration for Pope developed before his tenure as captain. He has always rated him, and took him under his wing during the 2021-22 Ashes when Pope was in a rough patch of form. Stokes even negotiated with then-captain Joe Root to fix Pope at No.5 for the third Test of that Australia tour, with Stokes volunteering to move up to four. He went as far as telling Pope the plan had been agreed, only for the management to drop Pope for the next two Tests.Pope was also the first Bazball “project player” – the first raw talent hot-housed in the greenhouse of good times. As newly appointed managing director Rob Key explained in May 2022, Pope’s placement at No.3 came in a bid to “unlock him”. You could argue they’ve done that – an average of 28.66 across 40 innings leading into that summer has been followed by 39.80 (and seven centuries) in the next 58 knocks.Pope’s specific No.3 average is 43.06, though this figure includes the 205 he made against Ireland in 2023, as well as the recent Zimbabwe 171. Without those knocks, his average slips to 36.62, which puts us back in the zone of yearning for a little more, as do his averages of 24.60 and 15.70 against India and Australia respectively. And so the allure of Bethell’s remarkable talent and unblemished (almost empty) record comes back into the frame.There’s an argument to say Stokes and Brendon McCullum have played it safe behind closed doors. For all Stokes’ bolshiness in his press conference, picking Bethell would sit neatly alongside the various calls over the last six months – the selections of Shoaib Bashir and Jamie Smith at the expense of Jack Leach, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Foakes. Even McCullum left last year’s New Zealand tour admitting a serious decision needed to be made after Bethell’s impressive showing. Well, the decision has been made and, surprisingly, it is a safe one.Perhaps that reflects the life cycle of this team. An initial period of wild, enthralling adolescence, followed by the familiar lurch into conservatism with age. A group of one-time free-spirited vibe mongers are now, on the eve of a five-match series against India that leads into a winter Ashes, considering things like “consequences”.Related

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Ironically, Pope’s life under Baz and Ben has almost entirely been about dealing with the consequences of his various roles, or at least minimizing the fallout that they caused. When Stokes took the job and spoke of wanting to be flanked by 10 selfless cricketers, Pope stood tallest. It is no coincidence Stokes chose him as his deputy.And look where that got him? Under-appreciated and under pressure. Had he not put team balance first and assumed the gloves in New Zealand, Bethell would not have got the opportunity to strum 260 compelling runs. This conversation would not be happening, and Pope could be looking ahead to the 10 legacy-defining Test matches to come. Now, even this first one feels tetchy.Of course, Pope still has a say here. He might not have had it in him to say, “you know what Jacob, settle down, I’m at 3” six months ago. But here and now, as the man in possession, he can make a statement.Does he have it in him? Maybe, you know. It is clear Pope’s patience for the discussion around his position has, naturally, diminished. He appreciates this is the lot of an international sports star, but there is a growing annoyance – and it’s spilling into anger – at the lack of respect given to his name and what he has done for this team.Rather than ignore it, he could do with harnessing some of that negative energy. One of England’s most selfless cricketers needs to be a lot more selfish, and seek the “I’m him” glory that came with that incredible 196 in Hyderabad.Even the babiest of baby faces need a heel-turn once in a while. Now is the time for his. With his Test future still in the balance, he should remember there’s a “me” in team, and an “I” in Ollie Pope.

Somerset’s quarter-final hero hoping to sign off with more silverware despite impending departure

Matt Roller12-Sep-2025Sean Dickson is a sports psychologist in training and does not have to look far to find a compelling case study for his second career.On Saturday night, Dickson walked out to play his final innings for Somerset at Taunton’s County Ground determined to prove the club’s management had made a mistake in not offering him a new contract; 43 minutes later, he walked off having dragged them to T20 Blast Finals Day almost single-handedly.”I was very clear on what I wanted to do: I wanted to sign off, and I wanted to sign off properly,” Dickson says. “It was a fire within me to go and prove that they’ve made the wrong decision, and I wanted to show them that… Normally, nerves are flowing, but I just took a deep breath, looked around, and just took it in for a bit. I set out to go and prove a point.”He proved it emphatically, hitting 71 not out off 26 balls. Somerset needed 33 off the last two overs, then 19 off the final five balls; Dickson took them across the line in four. “That was my best T20 innings,” he says. “Everyone wants to be in that position where they need to score 20 off the last over and hit sixes to win the end of the game… It’s quite nice to say I’ve done it.”Related

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Few would have seen it coming when Dickson, once a first-class triple-centurion with Kent, first signed for Somerset three years ago, ostensibly to strengthen their red-ball batting. He has struggled in the Championship, averaging 20.41, but his T20 record for Somerset is phenomenal: he averages 38.32 for them while maintaining a strike rate of 155.51.Somerset’s decision to let him go is not without logic, and Dickson acknowledges there is plenty of talent in the club’s “remarkable” academy. They have several promising young batters – including Tom Lammonby, Archie Vaughan, and James and Thomas Rew – and know that they need to offer them first-team cricket across formats to keep hold of them in the longer term.But he was clearly hurt by it nonetheless, describing the realisation that he would not be offered a deal as “heart-breaking”. He will instead spend the next two seasons at Glamorgan, who have effectively signed him as a replacement for Sam Northeast; the proximity will enable his young family to stay put in the south-west, where his eldest daughter recently started school.Dickson turned 34 last week and could have several years left ahead of him: during his time at London Spirit in the Hundred, he sought advice from coach Justin Langer on how he could become a “permanent player within the franchise system”. But he is already setting himself up for life after cricket, launching a sports psychology business early last year.His interest in the field started over a decade ago when he was diagnosed with generalised anxiety: “I just thought it was normal to have these situations where there was almost a dissociation from me being able to be in the present moment. It wasn’t.” He has since completed a masters in it, and is working towards his full accreditation.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}})}();