It is not as if nobody could have seen this coming. Cricket is littered with players who have struggled to cope with perhaps the two most difficult roles – opening batter and captain – even when they have not been thrust into them unexpectedly and temporarily.
That Dan Lawrence and Ollie Pope are flailing – both in the sense they are floundering and that their innings on day one here had them swinging in a wild and uncontrolled way – can be a surprise only to those who believe there are no situations bravado cannot conquer.
On Wednesday, Pope, England’s stand-in captain for the Sri Lanka series in the absence of the injured Ben Stokes, said he had asked Joe Root for some tips about coping with the role and what he called “finding a way to compartmentalise”, to avoid letting his ability to focus on his batting become overwhelmed by the competing considerations of captaincy.
This became Root’s speciality during his 64 games in charge. “When I was captain batting wasn’t necessarily fun, it was about going out there to have some peace and quiet,” he said. “It was a time to shut off from the rest of the world.”
Root might also have told him about how when he resigned in 2022 he said captaincy had “taken the life out of me”. Maybe Pope has also spoken to Paul Collingwood, England’s assistant coach and another member of the dressing room with relevant experience. He resigned as captain of the one-day side in 2008, saying: “It was draining me of the mental energy I needed. I couldn’t shut cricket out of my mind and that took its toll.”
The experience of Michael Vaughan, who was unexpectedly handed the captaincy in 2003 when Nasser Hussain quit after the first of five Tests against South Africa, also seems relevant. He struggled with the bat in that series, averaging 17.50.
“It’s been pretty tough mentally to take the captaincy on as I did and transform myself from just being a batsman to being a captain and having to look after other aspects of the game as well,” he said. Pope can hardly be blamed for finding this task too taxing.
After three innings, he is averaging a shade over four. It would no surprise if the 26-year-old’s head is spinning as much as,well, the ball as it ballooned off his top edge and looped to his opposite number, Dhananjaya de Silva. He had scored one.
Perhaps England could cope for a few games with having a top-order batter whose performances are suffering as a result of him taking on an unfamiliar burden. The problem is that they have two of them. Maybe Lawrence has also asked Root for some advice. Root was promoted to open for the 2013 Ashes, a short-lived experiment that lasted only for that series.
“Opening the batting is the hardest thing you can ask a batsman to do in Test cricket,” the selector Geoff Miller said at the time. “It is a tough, tough job.” The position of England’s current selectorate seems to be that anyone can do it.
It appears they are not alone, given Australia have adopted a similar stance since David Warner’s retirement. “Ideally, you’ve got someone who’s had experience opening but I don’t think it’s a blanket rule,” said Pat Cummins, their captain. He cited the example of Usman Khawaja who “wasn’t a specialist opener until it was basically the only spot available in the team and he forced his way in”.
Khawaja’s experience led the player to a different conclusion. “I’m telling you by far opening is the hardest and it’s very hard to bring someone in who hasn’t opened,” he said. In their first four matches after Warner’s retirement, Australia opened with Steve Smith, who for most of his career has batted at No 3 or 4 and averages 62.68 in those positions. As opener, and despite scoring an unbeaten 91 in his second game, he is averaging 27.50.
Lawrence’s case is a little different, in that he may not be significantly worse as an opener (where after three innings he averages 24.33) than he is anywhere else (11 innings, averaging 29). Given time he may settle, as the injured Zak Crawley did, at the top of the order, but he is unlikely to have the privilege. His dismissal on Thursday was not encouraging, caught behind after nicking a delivery he could only reach because he had gone for a stroll across his stumps as Lahiru Kumara neared the end of his run-up.
It may be, given they won the first match in Manchester, that England take this series. But there is certainly an irony that with their captain and an opener struggling England were rescued by a man who has held both positions and decided the best thing to do with them was to give them up.
