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<\/p>\n
Having lost his No.3 spot to emerging talent Jacob Bethell, Pope was then left out of the squad entirely for a 2-1 series loss to New Zealand earlier this year.<\/p>\n
However, the 28-year old received a lifeline when selector and former Australian Test batter Marcus North named him in the squad to face Pakistan, the first since the sacking of Brendon McCullum as coach and retirement of Stokes.<\/p>\n
A shoulder injury to new opener Emilio Gay has opened the door for a recall at the top of the order.<\/p>\n
But a difficult season in The Hundred went from bad to worse when Pope\u2019s MI London ran out of patience with a slow start to his innings against Trent Rockets.<\/p>\n
After being required to bat just twice his first four matches of the tournament, facing a combined six balls, Pope was pushed up to No.5 in the order against the Rockets.<\/p>\n
Having managed just one boundary and eight runs in his first nine balls, the Indian-owned franchise decided to pull the pin, retiring Pope out to replace him with Zimbabwean hitter Sikandar Raza.<\/p>\n
Ollie Pope was retired out after facing just nine balls in The Hundred.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
\u201cOllie Pope has been pulled off \u2013 retired,\u201d former England international Ravi Bopara said on commentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cA little harsh.\u201d <\/p>\n
Co-commentator Kass Naidoo added: \u201cBatted at seven the first game, eight the next \u2013 he has had no time in the middle. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday he gets the chance, and now he\u2019s pulled off after facing nine deliveries and not finding his rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n
The move was initiated by batting partner Sam Curran, who hit a six before meeting Pope mid-pitch and appearing to tell him to depart.<\/p>\n
\u201cSam Curran \u2013 the strike, and then delivers the news \u201cRight, off you pop lad, thanks for coming\u201d,\u201d former England great Mark Butcher said on commentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s all over it, Sam Curran.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps he\u2019d spoken to Ollie Pope about it beforehand, and said \u201cLook, it\u2019s not going great, we\u2019re running out of balls. We\u2019ve got Sherfane Rutherford and Sikandar Raza coming up. I might just tap you off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no disagreement from Ollie Pope. It\u2019s slightly embarrassing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something we are used to as professional cricketers, but he took it okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pope’s teammate Sam Curran appeared to tell his England teammate to pack it in.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
Curran went on to club 72 off just 46 balls.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just the fourth time in The Hundred that a player has been retired mid-innings, with Sam Billings the only other Englishman to cop the indignity.<\/p>\n
Not regarded as a power hitter, Pope averages 27.26 in the shortest format at a strike rate of 132.54.<\/p>\n
He played nine matches for Adelaide Strikers in the 2024\/25 BBL season, scoring 191 runs at a strike rate of 122.43 while also keeping wicket.<\/p>\n
However, Raza was unable to provide the scoring uptick the team would have expected, managing just six off his first eight balls before hitting his first six.<\/p>\n
He would finish with 16 off 11, but MI\u2019s score of 7\/147 from their hundred balls proved nowhere near enough, as the in-form Rockets claimed a sixth consecutive victory by six wickets with ten balls to spare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just days after being added to England\u2019s Test squad for their upcoming series against Pakistan, Ollie Pope has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-848577","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\/848577","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=848577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}