It’s just good to be seen as leader in that dressing room: Ollie Pope

Ever since Ollie Pope embraced international cricket, he was seen as a potential dressing-room leader for the future. The legendary England pacer, Stuart Broad, recently acknowledged that and stated that the 25-year-old speaks really well in team meetings and has a great cricket mind and thus believes that the Middlesex-born cricketer can indeed lead England in the future.

While talking about the same, the middle-order batter mentioned he feels overwhelmed to be identified as a leader in the team. He also revealed that the Test skipper, Ben Stokes, at times discusses certain things with him and also talks to some senior players in the dressing room to arrive at a conclusion. The cricketer later mentioned that Stokes along with the head coach, Brendon McCullum, is doing great and they have allowed young players to grow in their system.

“There’s no label on it (captaincy), but it might be an option they are looking at in the future. It’s just good to be seen as a leader in that dressing room. Stokesy (Ben Stokes) is the captain, he knows exactly how he wants to run it, but he comes up and bounces ideas off me sometimes, and he’ll do the same with some of the really experienced guys in the changing room too."

“Baz (Brendon) McCullum and Stokesy have been great. They’ve allowed us young players to grow and I think each one of us feel like it’s our team now. I’m just going to keep developing that cricket brain and if it came about in the future, great, I’ll make sure I learn as much as possible before then. At the same time, I realise I’ve got a big job at number three to keep doing. If I can keep impressing there who knows what the future holds?” Pope said as quoted by independent.co.uk ahead of England’s first Test against New Zealand on February 16.

As a batting unit, we’re not fearing getting out now: Pope

Ever since Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over the responsibility of the England red-ball team, the Three Lions have completely revolutionized Test cricket. They are playing a fearless brand of cricket and courtesy of which, they have managed to win nine out of their last ten matches in the longest format of the game.

Stumper-batter Ollie Pope mentioned that they are not afraid to get out and that’s the reason they have been successful in this format.

“As a batting unit we’re not fearing getting out now. I think we spent too long worrying about our techniques and worrying about how the bowler is going to get us out. Stokesy and Baz have been top drawer in terms of simplifying Test cricket for us all. At the end of the day, it is a ball coming down at you. Stop worrying about your head position, your hands the whole time,” he added.

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