ENTER NEW SPIN KING
He may have just become an overnight sensation, but Australian cricket’s hottest young talent has long been building for this moment
LLOYD Pope was an eightyear-old mucking around in the nets.
He wanted to be a fast bowler, but managed only tame medium-pacers. Wasn’t much of a batsman. Had even tried wicket-keeping.
Then his Dad Myles made a suggestion that will enter Australian cricket folklore.
“Why don’t you try some leg spin, son? Go on, give me a Shane Warne impersonation?”
So Lloyd sent down a couple of leggies to his Dad in the nets in Cairns, Queensland.
They landed. And spun — a lot.
“Got a bit of turn naturally when I first started,” Pope said.
“I managed to take a couple of wickets in my first game and it just went from there.”
A “couple of wickets” understates it: Pope took 6-4 as an eight-year-old in his first outing as a leg spinner with the Barron River Cricket Club. Wickets have followed him everywhere since.
Melbourne-born, Queensland-raised, Pope and his family moved to Adelaide where he was schooled at Pulteney Grammar.
He represented the school at soccer, swimming, tabletennis, volleyball, basketball and chess.
And, of course, cricket. He soon linked with the Kensington Cricket Club, renowned as Sir Donald Bradman’s club in Adelaide’s leafy inner-east.
In October 2015, a 15-yearold Pope, in his first game against men for Kensington’s D grade, took 5-17, including a hat-trick.
In October 2016 at the under-17 national carnival, Pope captured the most wickets of anyone — 18 at an average of 14.67.
Two months later, just after celebrating his 17th birthday, he took the most wickets in the under-19 national carnival — 21 victims at 16.33. In the process, Pope became the only cricketer to lead the wickettakers in the under-17 and under-19 carnivals in the same season.
In April 2017, Pope collected the most wickets in Australia’s under-19 series, against Sri Lanka — 15 at 16.2, with a strike-rate of a wicket every 24 balls. And in January this year, Pope spun Australia to a remarkable quarter-final win against England in the under-19 World Cup.
The Aussies made just 127; the Poms were cruising at 0-47 in the eighth over. Enter Pope. Exit English batsmen. He collected 8-35, the best-ever figures at an under-19 World Cup.
While Pope has long been identified by talent spotters as a bright blip on the youth cricket radar, that performance gained him widespread recognition in a country besotted by the sport.
“It was pretty ridiculous, a lot of people started coming out and giving their opinions,” Pope said.
“It is a little bit tricky to try and back yourself if you think something is going right, then you have got 100,000 people telling you’re not bowling well or blah blah blah.”
But the gregarious Pope has never had a problem backing himself.
“He tosses the ball up and tries to spin it both ways, it doesn’t really matter who he is bowling to,” his South Australian teammate, Jake Lehmann, said.
“He’s pretty jovial. He’s probably a little kid in a lot of ways but he’s very mature with his bowling.”
Lehmann led the Redbacks when Pope made his first-class debut in a Sheffield Shield match against NSW last week.
He took only two wickets but his maiden first-class victim came with a viciouslyturning wrong’un which set the cricket world abuzz. In his second game for the Redbacks, the 18-year-old Pope became the youngest to take seven wickets in a Shield innings, collecting 7-87 against Queensland on Thursday.
The self-effacing tweaker’s response: “It’s pretty good, I guess.”
Pope is dubbed ‘Pennywise’ for an apparent likeness to Stephen King’s clown character when his red-hair flies up in delivery stride.
And he pinches himself that he’s playing Shield cricket, let alone setting records in the 126-year competition.
“Just walking out there at the start of play and realising my name is on the scoreboard and that’s it happening — it’s an amazing feeling,” Pope said. And he’s not about to embrace the hype which now follows him, just as wickets have done since first turning a leg spinner.
“It’s a strange feeling to have cameras and things in my face,” he said. “I just take it as it comes.”