{"id":22294,"date":"2025-07-25T23:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T23:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22294\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T23:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T23:50:12","slug":"ollie-pope-puts-freneticism-to-good-use-as-tip-and-run-torments-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22294\/","title":{"rendered":"Ollie Pope puts freneticism to good use as \u2018tip and run\u2019 torments India"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have ever fielded at mid-off or mid-on at any level of cricket, you will know how difficult it can be to prevent a single being taken if the batters are so minded. Come a little closer and soon you are being berated by the bowler because it requires only a gentle piece of timing for the ball to speed past you, and then you go back to where you were and the said bowler is fuming about the singles again.<\/p>\n

The key here, though, is that the batters have to be so minded. Not all are. In this age of small boundaries and power hitting, the art of running between the wickets has been easily neglected, even if it does have to be said in mitigation that the standard of fielding is so much higher.<\/p>\n

Part of the initial Bazball philosophy was that every fielder had to chase every ball relentlessly to the boundary (resulting in Jack Leach suffering concussion in the first Test at Lord\u2019s in 2022) and that everyone should \u201crun towards the danger\u201d in times of stress, but hard running by the batsmen has not really been a salient feature. Until now. Until Ollie Pope and Joe Root ran India ragged in the morning session of day three here. <\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

Root, left, and Pope left India flustered with a period of what Broad described as \u201ctip and run\u201d in which they put on 107 before lunch<\/p>\n

GREIG COWIE\/SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL<\/p>\n

They were quite brilliant in the way they put the visitors under serious pressure in a very different manner from that to which we have become accustomed in this era. Perhaps, this side really is growing up in recognising that there are a variety of ways to be positive and still win Test matches. Root and Pope put on 144 in a relatively sedate 231 balls, but they set an aggressive tone of complete dominance by an alternative route.<\/p>\n

Running is surely the easiest part of batting, one that does not require top-end speed (running in pads is not easy and can slow the quickest), but rather good intent and street-smartness as to what is possible in terms of the distance of the throw required and the nimbleness of the thrower.<\/p>\n

It is a part of the game at which even the less talented such as myself could once excel, spawning a favourite nickname of \u201cThe Run Thief\u201d. And both Pope and Root certainly stole runs for fun here, tormenting an Indian side desperate for early wickets. This was where Pope\u2019s famed freneticism could be put to good use, and as for Root he is always the busiest of batsmen, with this partnership providing some echoes of probably the best running between the wickets I have seen from England in a Test match, which was when Root and Jonny Bairstow were batting together at Headingley against New Zealand in 2013.<\/p>\n

\"England<\/p>\n

Pope\u2019s excellent running put India under the cosh but he was left disappointed by his soft dismissal<\/p>\n

SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL<\/p>\n

At one point here Stuart Broad said on Sky Sports: \u201cThey are playing tip-and-run,\u201d advising captain Shubman Gill to post a better fielder in the positions being targeted, rather than the leg-weary bowlers. But he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

There was a close call, of course there was, and Root could have been run out on 22 if Ravindra Jadeja\u2019s throw had hit the stumps. But it didn\u2019t, and in truth this happened before the real shift in the pair\u2019s mindset and perhaps it even triggered it.<\/p>\n

So a change first became apparent when the unthreatening offerings of Anshul Kamboj were introduced and Pope advanced down the pitch, hitting a ball wide of mid-on and running instantly, snaffling a five when Mohammed Siraj wildly threw four overthrows. Soon the wicketkeeper was summoned up to the stumps, granting Pope a life on 48 when an under edge was dropped.<\/p>\n

\"England<\/p>\n

Pope narrowly avoids being run out on his way to 71<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n

In Jadeja\u2019s first over of the day Pope teased Jasprit Bumrah with an easy single to mid-off, and it was a repeat of that that brought up Pope\u2019s half-century. As mentioned, Bumrah came closer, and Pope still took him on, with a flustered Bumrah then fumbling. No wonder Pope and Root smiled at each other, because India had no answer.<\/p>\n

You have to be prepared to get dirty in this running business, however, and Pope duly did so when diving after a single to Siraj at mid-on. A delightfully cheeky two out to deep square leg by Pope off Kamboj to bring up England\u2019s 300 was then copied almost immediately by Root off Jadeja so that the pair went to lunch unbeaten, having put on 107 in the session.<\/p>\n

That Pope departed soon after the break was a shame, and a waste if truth be told, because it was a tame dismissal, Pope planting his front foot and pushing his hands at a ball not full enough for the purpose. He was distraught, having missed out on a century, just like his fellow drinker in the perennially under-pressure saloon, Zak Crawley, the previous day, but he had played his part, and it was not a walk-on part. He was running.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you have ever fielded at mid-off or mid-on at any level of cricket, you will know how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-22294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}