Pope hoping to earn one-day call

CRICKET: Ollie Pope has just announced himself as one of Test cricket’s hottest prospects but the England batsman is already dreaming of crossing over into the one-day side.

Pope has been earmarked as a future star for some time and matched words with deeds over the past six weeks in South Africa, hitting a brilliant maiden century and averaging 88.66 across five innings.

Having missed the first Test defeat through illness, Pope scored important runs in each of the tourists’ hat-trick of wins in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg and now looks set fair for a long and successful career at the highest level.

The 22-year-old will be heading home before the limited-overs leg of the tour and has not yet found his way into a side who won last summer’s 50-over World Cup and are now targeting the 20-over trophy later this year.

It cannot be too long before the selectors cave in, though.

“My dream is to play all three formats for England,” he said.

“I see myself as a white-ball player as well but our team is pretty established at the moment. They’ve got a great batting line-up and a great middle order so if I want to get in that one-day side I’ve got to bide my time, score my runs in county cricket and hopefully keep scoring some Test runs. Then it will look after itself.”

Stuart Broad has been sanctioned for loose language in the Test series, losing 15 per cent of his match fee and picking up one demerit point for swearing at Faf Du Plessis.