Sri Lanka deserved to win, we probably shot ourselves in the foot: Ollie Pope

Sri Lanka defeated England by eight wickets in the third Test of the series at Kennington Oval. The hosts managed to take a lead of 62 runs in the first innings but in the second, they were bundled for 156 runs. Sri Lanka capitalized on that with the bat as Pathum Nissanka scored a sensational century while veteran all-rounder Angelo Mathews supported him with an unbeaten 32.

Mendis hit 127* runs and was adjudged Player of the Match. He also made 64 runs in the first innings as Sri Lanka posted 263 runs. Meanwhile, England’s stand-in captain, Ollie Pope expressed his disappointment after the defeat and stated that Sri Lanka deserved to win the match. He also noted that the batters failed to step up in the second innings of the match, which cost them the match. The 26-year-old also clarified that the team members were not complacent. 

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“Disappointing not to be on the right side of the result. Day 3 we probably shot ourselves in the foot. Credit to Sri Lanka, they bowled really well and credit to Nissanka for the way he played. They deserved to win. I don’t think it was complacency at all, it has been a long summer but that has nothing to do with this loss. We came out with the same intent. It was just one of those games that it didn’t come off, we’ve played some really good cricket throughout the series but we’ll take a look at that Day 3 and reflect on it,” Pope said in the post-match presentation.

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Pope opens up on captaincy experience

Pope filled in as captain for the Sri Lanka series as Ben Stokes is currently out with a hamstring tear. He did a decent job and talked about the challenges that he felt. Notably, the Chelsea-born cricketer faced immense criticism for not scoring enough in the first two Tests but he managed to silence the critics with a century in the third game. He mentioned that there was a lot of noise in the couple of weeks but he was happy with how he managed to tackle it.

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“I’ve loved it, when Stokesy is back fit, he’ll be hopping back in. It’s got its challenges but I’ve loved it in the last two weeks. I felt like there were a fair few voices over the last few weeks but it was nice to block that out, play my game and get some runs. Would’ve been nicer if it came in a winning cause (a century in the third Test) but was still nice to get some runs. Overall, happy with how I dealt with all the noise about me being captain and having a couple of poor games,” Pope said.