Confident dressing room will enable Pope to express himself – unlike in my baptism of fire
Debutant will be at ease in a positive team vibe, which is in contrast to having to face Donald and Pollock amid tensions behind the scenes on 1999 tour to South Africa
There is not a lot of advice you can give a young kid on debut like Ollie Pope, other than watch the ball and trust yourself. He will be brimming with youthful enthusiasm and he is lucky to be walking into a side containing three of England’s greatest-ever players and a captain with 6,000 Test runs.
Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler are very confident players, Moeen Ali might not play but he is still a very positive cricketer, so the environment in the team should enable Pope to feel confident enough to be busy, vibrant and, basically, be himself.
I also made my England debut batting at No4. You have to remember, times were very different then. I made my debut at the end of the Nineties and the England team had gone through so many difficult times. They had just lost to New Zealand 2-1, were deemed the worst team in Test cricket, Duncan Fletcher had been appointed coach and there were a lot of new faces on my first tour to South Africa.
The first Test was at Johannesburg, one of the most intimidating arenas in the world, and we were facing Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock and Co. India have high quality but the atmosphere will not be as intense behind the scenes because, in recent years, England have won so many series.
In 1999 we were not used to winning and it is the opposite now. This team have won a lot of series and it is a terrific opportunity for Pope to start his career at such a young age with good people around him.
The vibe only helps so much. It is about how you prepare your mind for the big stage. You just have to learn from experience.
I have said for years that if you want great cricketers you pick them young. If you want good cricketers, then you wait. Andrew Strauss, Paul Collingwood, Marcus Trescothick and myself were all picked a little later, around the ages of 24-25, and we were good cricketers, not great. Trescothick would have been a great cricketer had he been picked a bit earlier but it just did not happen in that era. Players such as David Gower, James Anderson, Alastair Cook, Stuart Broad, Joe Root and Ian Botham will all be listed as greats and they all started young. If a young player fails, it should not hurt them as much.
They have time to come back so do not have the same fear of failure as an older player who will worry he only has one chance.
But you cannot pick young players for the sake of it. They have to have achieved something. Look at Mason Crane. He was picked too soon. But Pope and Sam Curran have had success and deserve their chance.
From the clips I have seen, Pope is technically sound and can play off the front and back foot. I watched his press conference and he sounded mature.
The fact he said he has already been visualising facing the Indian bowlers was a grown-up answer. I would not have said that at his age and it showed he is a 25-year-old cricketer in terms of mentality, rather than a 20-year-old.
He has openly admitted that the best spinner he has faced this season in the championship is Liam Dawson, so playing against Ravichandran Ashwin will be a huge step up. Often with debutants you worry about how they will handle pace and short-pitched bowling but the Indian seamers should hold no fear.
He has faced their kind of pace in the County Championship.
He will have to guard against exhaustion. A Lord’s Test is a long week. He will have arrived on Monday night, had dinner with the lads for the first time, netted Tuesday and yesterday and spoken to the press. You just do not do that in county cricket. You never know how young players will cope with it all but it is interesting watching how they get on.
This is a week when England are vulnerable. They have just won a close game, had some praise and are 1-0 up in the series. But this is a ground where England have lost games in recent years and they will have to get selection just right.
It has turned at Lord’s over the past few years so England might well need the second spin option. The other school of thought is, what would India prefer to face? Answer: spin rather than seam, so perhaps Chris Woakes should play ahead of Moeen. It is a tricky one for England to get right.
If England win this week the series is over. England will not lose the third Test at Trent Bridge to a team who are 2-0 down. But they could lose at Trent Bridge if India win here, because the Indians will have a lot of confidence.
We also have to remember India have high quality and an individual in Virat Kohli capable of special deeds. Lord’s will inspire him to do it again. He will be desperate to get his name on that honours board. It adds up to a fascinating match.
He has admitted the best spinner he has faced this season is Dawson, so Ashwin will be a big step up