England’s Test Vice Captain Ollie Pope undergoes Successful Shoulder Surgery

The English number three suffered a shoulder injury in the ongoing Ashes series

While England and Australia are battling it out on the field England’s test vice-captain Ollie Pope has undergone a successful surgery the batter shared the news via Twitter on Wednesday. Ollie Pope who suffered a shoulder injury during the second test of the ongoing Ashes series has been ruled out of the rest of the series following the injury. The batter looked in form in the two tests that he played in the series scoring 90 runs in the matches played at Edgbaston and Lords combined with his highest score coming in the second innings of the second test at Lords.

The Injuries

While Pope (25) injured his shoulder while fielding in the second match at the home of cricket, Nathon Lyon Australia’s premier off-spinner also injured himself while attempting to stop a ball going into the boundary. Both players were ruled out of the remainder of the Ashes series due to their respective injuries which has left both the teams searching for their potential replacements. While England brought back Moeen Ali in the third test match as a replacement for Pope, Australia banked on off-spinner Tod Murphey to fill in the void left by Lyon’s injury. Interestingly Moeen Ali played as a specialist spinner in the first match of the series. The all-rounder injured himself while bowling in the first match and was not able to bowl in the second innings having last played a test match in 2021 against India. 

The Gamble

As a result, he was left out of the following test match at Lords as England went in with an all-seam attack by including Josh Tongue in the final eleven in place of Moen Ali. With Stokes nursing a knee injury Meoen was brought back into the eleven as the fifth bowling option as England played with four specialist fast bowlers in the fourth test at Headingly which they won. Moeen was pushed up the batting order to number three in the second innings of the match and although the left-hander did not score many runs it gave Harry Brooks to bat at his preferred number five position. A gamble which paid off as Brook scored a match-winning fifty at Headingley