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The Clapham boys are finally breaking up.
jack crawley And Ollie Pope Been tied at the hip for years. Born a month apart, the pair are cut from the same privately educated cloth. The two talented players, who captained their school teams against each other, played the same national age-group competitions together and scaled the heights of international cricket together.
The journey ended in Adelaide.
Crawley scored 85 runs. an innings where he batted As he once wore an England shirtHe was on one run off 27 balls, but was calm, Drive when the opportunity arises, even pull over vigorously in front of an intersection,
“Good players pull the ball square to the wicket,” Graeme Swann said on TNT Sports. “Great players drag it across the square. It’s the best performance I’ve seen him play.”
On the other hand, the Pope arrived in need of a miracle in the city of churches. He has looked like a tortured soul since his dismissal in the first innings in Perth. A confused mind spoke at the pre-match press conference in Brisbane, where he responded with a 200-word salad about England’s approach with the bat, concluding with, “It’s about being completely clear”.
Correct.
Career ended in Australia. Out of 50 men to play England on one ash In this century tour, 26 never played for his country again. The Pope’s relative youth at 27 means he still has a chance for a second term. Their home record is excellent and a massive run will see them back in the equation. But it seems unlikely that he will get a chance in Melbourne next week. His average in 16 innings against Australia is 17. Coming out to bat today, he needed at least a century to put his place in the England XI in danger. Instead, he made 17.
“I think Poppy has a tough time sometimes,” Crawley said of his friend and teammate after the game. “I am trying to find out the reason for that. He has scored big centuries whenever we have needed him against tough opponents.
“Yeah, he’s had some quiet games, but I think he’s an incredibly good player who plays a really tough role at number three. I think he’s playing well.”
Over the years, the two have been baseball brothers. Supported on quantitative as well as qualitative metrics, where people Know The game said they could play. Pope was shy in junior age-group cricket at Surrey, but his temperament and technique saw him through and he made his international debut at the age of 20. And Crowley was the same, but as an adult. His home record at Kent was modest, but his tall stature and ability to dominate a day meant that people believed he was ready for the big stage.
Potential players, but each has played more than 60 Test matches, with this Ashes in mind, both have been given more opportunities than any other batsman in history. Bring back the talent and let it shine.
But in Pope’s last eight matches, all of which have come against Australia and India, he has averaged 28.7 and scored above 50 only twice. A pattern has also emerged where Pope starts the series strongly but then fades away. Pope has spoken publicly about his inability to sleep during Test matches. His average in the first innings of matches is 45, in the second it is 20. Sleep deprived and run deprived.
His last century came in the opening match of the series against India last summer, after which he achieved the milestone and was determined to keep going and “score runs after runs”. Since then he averages 24 and has scored 50 once.
You can’t remain a capable player forever. And the returns for the Pope never came. He will always have Hyderabad.
However, Crowley continues to tease. By the end of the summer of 2025, no batsman in Test history had opened the batting so many times but had such a low average. He started the Ashes with a pair, but unlike Pope, whose early failure overwhelmed him, Crawley shrugged it off and returned with quality. 76 and 44 in Brisbane impressed and disappointed in equal measure. Similarly, here also he has 85 runs.
“No, if anything, I felt really relaxed today,” Crawley replied when told that he sounded like a man batting with extra motivation. “I think that’s why I played well.”
Still, his contributions have been excellent innings that ended too early. It is unclear whether they are evidence of a change in her career or instead they are an ultimate gaslighting.
In theory, the Ashes is still alive, but England’s post-mortem is already gathering pace. Who stays, and who goes.
When Pope won his 50th Test cap last year, it was Crawley who presented it to him.
“Poppy, we’ve known each other a long time,” Crowley said then. “We have played with and against each other for a long time, and now we obviously run Clapham together.
“I’m thinking about when we were 17 and playing together and what we would have done to play just one game for England. You’re one of the best players in the world, and that’s why this is still just the beginning.”
A year later in Adelaide, it came very close to the end.