GLAMMY

[The Bloop]

I don't see anyone else jumping up to beat him to a spot at #5. For what it's worth, I think a lot of our younger players like him, Crawley, Lawrence will fare better in Australian conditions

If Ben Stokes comes back in at 6 then I can only see room for one of those 3 to play at number 5. As it stands I think Pope is the best equipped of those to fulfill that role.

[Alex!]

If Ben Stokes comes back in at 6 then I can only see room for one of those 3 to play at number 5. As it stands I think Pope is the best equipped of those to fulfill that role.

The idea of Stokes travelling to Australia seem as remote as ever, don't think we'll be seeing him in England shirt until the home summer next year at the earliest

[the other bob wilson]

If Ben Stokes comes back in at 6 then I can only see room for one of those 3 to play at number 5. As it stands I think Pope is the best equipped of those to fulfill that role.

Poor players don't hit two hundred and sixty odd in a test innings, so I'd say Crawley definitely has something and his test career is far from over in my view, but I think it would be an admission of defeat in a way to pick him for the Ashes tour with him not really having scored the volume of runs for Kent since being dropped from the test team to demand a recall. I'm not as convinced by Lawrence, but he seems to have the character to succeed as an international player. I agree that Pope is the one of the three best suited at the moment to be included. Although it seems daft to ignore a score of 274 when considering someone for a test place, I definitely would do so in this case - everyone knew Ollie Pope's record at the Oval was very good before this innings,, but there've been times this year in international cricket where he's looked all at sea technically.