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Former England opener Geoffrey Boycott isn’t convinced that top-order batters Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope have outclassed their technical issues, despite both players’ extraordinary performances against Zimbabwe in a four-day Test game played at the Trent Bridge Cricket Ground. Crawley racked up 124 runs off 171 while Pope smashed a superb 171 off 166 and emerged as the highest run-scorer in the game. Crawley saw himself losing his battles against Matt Henry in the entire New Zealand tour that happened in November-December 2024.
Talking about Pope, he also failed to deliver impactful innings in 2024. Noting their previous underwhelming performances, Boycott has written in his column for The Daily Telegraph that these players will go through the real challenge in the upcoming five-match Test series against India, to be played at home. The legendary batter also believes that Zimbabwe’s bowling unit lacked quality and both batters’ performances in one-off Test can’t corroborate that they have overcome their issues.
"We cannot say suddenly that Crawley and Pope have solved the technical and mental issues that have dogged their careers because the Zimbabwe bowling was so average. They were medium pacers not good enough or consistent enough to expose any flaws in Crawley and Pope’s batting. We will have to wait until the India series to see if there really is any improvement against better bowlers. That will be the real test and give us a better idea of where they stand," wrote Boycott in his column.
Ollie Pope’s Test records against India
Ollie Pope has played a lot of cricket against India in his seven-year Test career for England. In 13 games, he has scored 615 runs with a hundred and fifty in 25 innings. In 2024, when England toured India for five Tests, the 27-year-old hit 196 in the opening match played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
Riding on his innings, England beat the hosts by 28 runs. The English team will heavily bank on Pope not just to extract victory against the upcoming home series but also in the Ashes, which will take place in Australia from November 21, 2025 to January 8, 2026.
