“He said this is the last of the flat wickets” – Ollie Pope reveals warning from Virat Kohli during first test

“He said this is the last of the flat wickets” – Ollie Pope reveals warning from Virat Kohli during first test

India defeated England in the four-match Test series with a scoreline of 3-1 to qualify for the final of the World Test Championship. It wasn’t all too easy for the hosts however, as they lost the first test in Chennai where a masterful double-hundred from Joe Root and some good bowling on the final day from the English bowlers helped clinch it.

But India came roaring back in the next three tests as the pitches in the same behaved markedly difficultly. Unlike the first test’s pitch that was flat for the first three days before deteriorating, the next three tests produced pitches that favored turn right from the first day. The Indian spinner’s superiority and the batsmen’s brilliance therefore, helped India breeze past the English in the next three tests.

Ollie Pope speaks on Virat Kohli’s warning

Ollie Pope
Ollie Pope

England batsman Ollie Pope spoke about the series against India during a media conference and revealed as to how Indian skipper Virat Kohli had warned him about the pitches that would greet the English after the first test.

“In the second innings the pitch started spinning quite a lot. I remember standing at the non-striker’s end and Kohli came up to me and said ‘this is the last of the flat wickets’. At that point I knew it was probably going to be quite a challenging rest of the series from a batting point of view,” he revealed.

Looking at the brighter side of things, Pope said, “I’m not saying [India] felt they had to produce those wickets, but the fact they’ve gone away from their flat wickets for three days, then spin on day four and five, which is generally the theme out there, it was quite a compliment to us in how we went about our business and a compliment to our bowlers.”

“That shot us in the foot a little bit but it’s a good compliment to us as a team because they obviously felt they had to change their gameplan,” he signed off.

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