VISAKHAPATNAM: Ollie Pope had his chances against India earlier too. By his own admission, he didn't make it count in 2018 and 2021. Ever since, the Surrey player has been keen to lay down the marker at No. 4, where he reckons top batters like Steve Smith, Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli have shouldered the burden.
The 26-year-old is now the toast of England after his fabulous stroke-filled 196 put the focus on the brand of attacking cricket the visitors portrayed. Not for them the plodding approach anymore, said England opener Zak Crawley in the lead-up to the second Test.
According to Crawley, England's batters are all natural strokeplayers and the new approach of skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum has only helped them showcase their attacking instincts. "I suppose it ('Bazball') comes naturally, as a lot of our teams are playing more aggressively. The mindset when I first came to England was to take your time and build a long innings. I didn't think that came naturally to me and a few of the others. A lot of us play a bit better under this regime," he added.
Crawley looked good during his 20 and 31 in Hyderabad and said England are not wary of an Indian backlash. "There are four games left. We have got to stick to what we do well. The wickets in Abu Dhabi (where they trained) turned a lot because we wanted them and we made them turn," he said.
The preparation included using the sweep shot to negate the Indian spin threat. "Sweeping and reverse sweeping when it's spinning is a good option. It takes spin out of the plan. I think the reverse sweep is more common for us, because there's just less fielders in the deep. The reverse sweep comes probably just as naturally to us as the normal sweep," he added.
The 25-year-old Kent batter said India still have the depth in their ranks to offset the loss of KL Rahul and Jadeja. "Looking at their depth, they have two very good players coming in. We're just trying to play the same, read the conditions on Day One and see what happens from there," he said.
