Ollie Pope believes ‘Bazball’ polish is about ‘tightening a few loose screws’

Ollie Pope. (Photo Source: BCCI)

Ollie Pope, England vice-captain, stated that they will continue with their attacking approach in the upcoming Tests as well while also acknowledging that some changes should be made. Notably, their ‘Bazball’ approach came into scrutiny after suffering a 4-1 series defeat against India, earlier this year. Despite managing to win the opening game by 28 runs, Ben Stokes and Co. struggled and eventually lost the remaining four games.

With England now eyeing to play this summer’s home Test series against the West Indies and Sri Lanka, respectively, Pope stated that they always want to be positive. He is confident that England can stage a sensational comeback much like they have done over the past couple of years.

“We still want to be a team where we’re positive. We’ve had some good success over here and just because we’ve lost this series against India doesn’t mean we need to reinvent the wheel. For us, now, it’s about tightening a few loose screws – that’s how I’d describe it. We can take a lot of confidence over what we’ve done over the last two years or so,” Pope told Sky Sports News.

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“But we also realise we want to be the best team in the world and to do that we need to be better at what we’ve been doing over the last two years or so. In a few small ways, we can really hone in and become a better team so we can compete with the guys, especially away from home,” he added.

The 26-year-old went on to say that all the batters need to be consistent considering the run-scoring was a problem in recent times.

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“We still want to go about that positive style of cricket and that freedom. From a batting point of view, each batter has had their own success in their own positions. Each batter is smart enough to know exactly how they need to play and to put about an innings and go score a hundred as consistently as they can,” he further said.