England No. 3 Ollie Pope set a new world record after the Bazballers had a field day on the first morning of the cricket summer at home against Zimbabwe on Thursday.
Batting first on Day 1 of the four-day Test at Bridge, Nottingham, England piled on a massive 498 for three in 88 overs with the top-3 of the Ben Stokes-led side all gathering centuries. While opener Ben Duckett slammed a century in as many balls on his home ground, a struggling Zak Crawley got some runs under his belt with relatively slower 124 off 171 balls.
But it was England’s No. 3 Pope who set the headlines after his senior batting partner Joe Root nudged past 13,000 Test runs.
Pope waltzed to his eighth Test century in 109 balls and set multiple records as he crossed the three-figure mark. Despite his middling Test average, Pope recorded his seventh hundred at No.3, putting him level with Jonathan Trott among English batters in the spot. Only legends Wally Hammond, Ken Barrington and David Gower have racked up more Test centuries for England at No. 3.
More curiously, Pope’s eight centuries have all come up against different oppositions. The 27-year-old extended his own world record to become the first batter to record his first eight Test hundreds against different countries.
Pope became the 30th Test batter to record centuries at least against eight different countries and could even equal the record should he hit a century in the Ashes later this year.
