England vice-captain Ollie Pope has said that there could be a day when England scores 600 runs in day's play, as Bazball rhetoric ramps up once more in the aftermath of the series-win against West Indies.
England are currently 2-0 up in the three-match Test series against West Indies. The second Test at Trent Bridge saw three English batters score hundreds - Pope in the first innings, and Joe Root and Harry Brook in the second.
The Bazball era under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes has been characterised by fast scoring, as has been evident in the ongoing series as well where each of the three individual hundreds England batters have hit have come at strike rates greater than 68. Engand's series run rate has been 4.47, easily better than West Indies' 3.62.
The confidence from the runs scored during the game is reflected in Pope's comments ahead of the third Test at Edgbaston. The England vice-captain believes that the side has the ability to score 500 or even 600 runs in a day's play.
Harry Brook has jumped up to No.3 in the ICC Test batting rankings following his second-innings century in the Trent Bridge Test, the highest he has ever reached in his short Test career.
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Pope: It's about becoming more and more ruthless
"Sometimes we might score 280-300 in a day but that's okay and probably because we're reading situations," Pope said. "We saw at Trent Bridge, when the lights were on and it started swinging more that was the time just to manage the game a little bit and that's something we want to keep getting better and better at.
"But there might be a day where we go and get 500 or 600 at some point in the future as well. That's a cool thing to have."
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Pope elaborated on how the Stokes-McCullum era has inspired confidence in the batting unit. "I think when Baz [head coach Brendon McCullum] and Stokesy took over, we were a batting unit with, not a lack of experience, but a lack of confidence at the time," he said.
"I feel that everyone has kind of grown into their roles and now there's a real hunger. There always is a hunger but now there's an extra bit in that batting line-up where we feel like we can go on to do even better things. At the time it was about building confidence, now it's about hopefully becoming more and more ruthless."
What's the record for the most runs in a day's play in Test cricket?
Sri Lanka holds the record for the most runs scored by a team in a day in Test cricket. They made 509 runs on day two of their first Test against Bangladesh in Colombo in 2002.
England occupy the second spot on the list, having scored 506 on the first day of the first Test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi in 2022. Pope was a part of that game, and scored a 108 off just 104 balls batting at No.3 on day one.
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