MANCHESTER: Ollie Pope is prepared to “do his own thing” as England Test captain but accepts he is in caretaker charge of what is still effectively Ben Stokes’s side. Pope will become the 82nd man to take up the captaincy when he leads England out in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Old Trafford starting Wednesday.

The 26-year-old Surrey batsman was promoted from vice-captain after Stokes was ruled out after suffering a torn hamstring playing in the Hundred. Stokes is set to miss the three-match series against Sri Lanka. Pope’s elevation caps a rapid rise for a cricketer who was not certain of his place when Stokes took charge two years ago alongside coach Brendon McCullum.

Stokes first led England, in 2020, deputizing for father-to-be Joe Root who left a message reading “do it your own way”. Pope has no qualms about sticking with the basic ‘Bazball’ approach and will also be able to call directly on Stokes, who will be with the England squad for all three Tests.

“It’s a great opportunity for me, one of the greatest honors in English cricket,” Pope told a pre-match press conference at Old Trafford on Tuesday. “But I think it’s still Stokesy’s team. “That’s probably the difference. I’ve had no message in my locker but I’m sat next to him in the changing room!

“It’s going to be great to have him around. If I want to lean on him, I can lean on him and I think he’s going to let me do my own thing for the course of this Test series as well. “I’ve picked his brains a little bit on that moving forward. It’s a lot of the same messages but from a different voice and in my own way.

“He’s obviously going to be watching, chatting, so I can have those conversations in the intervals if I think anything needs to change and we can bounce a few ideas off each other. “We’ve got some great coaches and obviously he’s just another brain in the changing room.”

As England head into the first Test against Sri Lanka at Old Trafford starting Wednesday with several players given a chance to prove a point after captain Ben Stokes’s series-ending injury. And that means England will be without their inspirational leader for the first time since Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum launched the team’s dynamic ‘Bazball’ era two years ago.

England announced their team on Monday, with fast bowler Matthew Potts recalled as they opted for a five-man attack. Meanwhile, Dan Lawrence — rarely deployed as an opener in county cricket — returns to the England side for the first time in two-and-a-half years after Zak Crawley’s fractured finger created a vacancy at the top of the order.

Crawley suffered his setback as England completed a 3-0 whitewash of the West Indies last month. England will be expected to achieve a similar result against a Sri Lanka side who, like the West Indies, have played just a solitary warm-up match prior to the first Test.

Conventional cricket wisdom has rarely been a part of England’s approach under the guidance of former New Zealand captain McCullum, so it should come as no surprise they have opted against replacing Crawley with a specialist opener.

Indeed Lawrence himself is in no doubt his natural attacking game is well-suited to the approach of the current England set-up. “I think that’s the style of cricketer that Baz McCullum and Ben Stokes are generally after and my general way of going about it is to try and be quite aggressive,” Lawrence said Monday.

“Throughout my whole career I’ve played a certain brand of cricket and that has served me well so I’m just going to do the same thing. I’m just going to go out there and try to be as free as possible.”

Experience

Sri Lanka can no longer call on star batsmen Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, but their squad does contain experienced performers in Angelo Mathews and Dimuth Karunaratne. Dhananjaya de Silva’s side will, however, be able to turn to another Sri Lanka great in Sanath Jayasuriya, the squad’s interim coach, who took over after Chris Silverwood, the ex-England paceman, opted against renewing his contract in June.

And former England batsman Ian Bell, also a member of the backroom staff, is on hand to provide local knowledge for what is Sri Lanka’s first series on English soil in eight years. Sri Lanka last played Test cricket in April but they do have recent experience of upsetting the odds after defeating India 2-0 in a three-match one-day international series earlier this month.

“We have an experienced batting order,” Jayasuriya, a dynamic batsman who pulverised England attacks in all formats, told ESPNCricinfo. “Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dinesh Chandimal - they have all played a lot of cricket.” This year marks the 40th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s first Test in England, a match where Sidath Wettimuny made a superb 190 - one of several hundreds for the tourists - in a highly creditable draw at Lord’s.

And Jayasuriya believes the timing of the current campaign could favour Sri Lanka. “The fact that we have got a late-summer tour is great,” he said. “It’s more similar to our conditions than the early summer tours.” — AFP