New Delhi, Nov 29 England vice-captain Ollie Pope has credited chats with his long-time confidante Alec Stewart for helping him, including talking about having calmness at the crease, to bounce back from a poor tour of Pakistan, where he averaged just 11.
At the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, Pope hit a fine 77 after coming in at number six, while sharing a fifth-wicket partnership of 151 with Harry Brook, who hit an unbeaten 132, as England ended day two at 319/5, and 29 runs behind New Zealand’s 348, especially after being 71/4 at one point.
"I didn't get Stewy throwing balls on the dog stick. He's too high up for that, I think. I had an open discussion with him rather than an array of sessions in the nets. It's probably healthy to talk to someone from outside who's been watching you."
"Sometimes that's a nice opinion to have. I gained a lot from going back and talking to him. It was more about 'what does it look like when I'm at my best?', because that was a frustrating thing - I wasn't getting to 20 or 30, to allow myself to go on to that big score."
"We talked about having that calmness at the crease. When I'm playing well there's that clarity in how I want to play, not trying to rush my way to 20 or 30. Pakistan wasn't an easy tour and I wasn't good enough to find a way."
"For me, it was really important to draw a line under it. I knew if I could get in the right headspace I could start the series strongly. Fortunately, I've done that and hopefully I can kick on and score a lot more runs in this series," said Pope to reporters.
He also said about his intention to continue batting at number three in Tests, though for this game, debutant Jacob Bethell was slotted there. "I want to be number three, I want to keep trying to make it mine. I've had too many low scores there but I've also managed to put together some good knocks this year batting at three.
"It's a job I want to do going forward and I think my skillset is still developing. It's definitely a job I want to keep doing. If I was batting at three, I'd have tried to play exactly the same way as today. The biggest difference at three is you set the tone a lot more, if you play well you can put your team in a really strong position."
"The fun thing at six, you might come in a 350 for 4 and it might be your job to push the game forward. (Or) you can get your team out a tricky situation. Both roles are good fun, just slightly different," he concluded.
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