Time to see some white smoke at No 3?

When Zak Crawley presented Ollie Pope with his 50th Test cap in Multan a few weeks ago the opening batter reminisced about them playing against each other as schoolboys and then made two quite eye-catching statements. With (hopefully) tongue firmly lodged in cheek, Crawley joshed about how the two men “run Clapham together” and described Pope as “one of the best players in the world”.

Two weeks is a long time in Test cricket, Shan Masood and his Pakistan side know that all too well, but it is a sign of how poor a tour Pope has had that the latter pronouncement would now elicit the more elongated eye-roll.

Pundits, former players and fans are questioning Pope’s suitability to bat at No 3, especially with series against a history-making New Zealand side, India and Australia on the horizon. Pope’s people could point to the centuries against Sri Lanka and West Indies during the home summer and then plonk you in front of his 196 against India at Hyderabad in January, a masterpiece of batting on the subcontinent and one of England’s great overseas Test innings in recent memory, give you a clip around your heretical ears and ask you what your problem is exactly?

To which his detractors would present a dossier of low scores, skittish starts and an apparent failure to fully understand his own game despite having played more than 50 Tests. They could then hold up a not particularly fine-tooth comb clogged with the fact that Pope is nearly 27 years old, has been around the Test side for six of those, been made Test vice-captain and led the side in Ben Stokes’s absence without instilling a sense of permanence.

The cherubic Pope may look like a Shirley Hughes drawing of a muddy toddler but his temperamental Test output is more akin to the girl with the curl. When he is good he is very good indeed (Hyderabad and the Oval 2024, Port Elizabeth 2020) but when he is bad he is horrid – his Pakistan series ended with an average of 11, he averages 15 against Australia and 24 against India.

The magic number? Nope.

Despite the heat on Pope, Brendon McCullum and Stokes will probably back him to find form and consistency, not least because there in no one battering the door down to take the No 3 spot from inside or outside the squad.

It is obvious Joe Root doesn’t want to move up from four despiteoften finding himself as a makeshift No 3 and scored a double century from the position in the first Test at Multan. Jamie Smith and Harry Brook are just starting their Test careers and have done well in the middle order, any tinkering with them will be approached with extreme caution.

What’s eating Ben Stokes?

Stokes is the only other player from within the camp who is being muted as a makeshift No 3. He has the all-round game the position demands and has shown on numerous occasions that he possesses an iron clad defence and blunderbuss attack, albeit sometimes not necessarily showcasing all of the gears between the two.

The timing would seem to be well off though. England’s captain cut a curiously subdued and uncharacteristically frustrated figure in the last two matches. The third Test in Rawalpindi was his worst Test as captain, a ponderous nadir to his leadership zenith at the same venue in 2022.

His bowling is clearly (and understandably) a long way from being serviceable, he didn’t bowl at all in the third Test even when England were desperate for a breakthrough to limit Pakistan’s first-innings lead and he is going through a lean patch with the bat this calendar year. Averaging 24 with a highest score of 70 in his 10 Test matches. Stokes scored 15 runs in Rawalpindi and got out in England’s second innings in a befuddling manner, leaving a ball from Noman Ali to thud into his box slap-bang in front of all three stumps with the game on the line.

Same old mistakes

For all their obvious strengths, England have plenty of weaknesses, most obviously against spin bowling and on wickets that are not conducive to their high octane brand of stroke-play. They have also suffered as a result of not being able to polish off opposition tails with games wagging out of their reach as they struggle to get themselves and their opponents off the park.

“I have learned from my mistakes and I am sure I can repeat them exactly.” There was even a whiff of Peter Cook absurdity about the England coach, Brendon McCullum, after the series was lost. “Zak [Crawley] was brilliant for us,” he said of the opener who scored 78 in the run-fest first Test in Multan and then had his returns torpedo, falling to Noman Ali’s left-arm spin four times in a row. It was the sort of baffling head-in-sand proclamation that means while England entertain and enthral like no other, they frustrate in the same way too.