Ollie Pope promises to crush every opponent; claims England will score 500 runs in 1 day in a Test

The England Cricket Team’s vice-captain Ollie Pope has promised that they will be "ruthless" in their pursuit of a Test series whitewash against the West Indies at home, as the hosts are gearing up for the third and final Test at Edgbaston on July 26.

Pope also claimed that England’s Test team could even rack up 600 runs in a single day while making it clear that the team will continue with their aggressive 'Bazball' style with no intention of slowing down.

Ollie Pope claims England can score 600 runs in a day in Test cricket

Notably, England scored over 400 runs in both innings of a Test match for the first time in the second Test in Nottingham, with totals of 416 and 425 against the West Indies.

On the other hand, England holds the record for the most runs scored on Day 1 in Test cricket, having amassed 588/6 against India in Manchester in 1936. However, Pope believes that the England Test team led by Ben Stokes is able to create a world record by surpassing their own record.

Ahead of the final Test against the West Indies at Edgbaston, England’s vice-captain assured that the team will continue their extremely aggressive ‘Bazball’ style, despite already having reclaimed the Botham-Richards Trophy. He said that England's batters just want to be ruthless.

Ollie Pope says England will be "ruthless" in pursuit of Test series whitewash against West Indies

Ollie Pope was quoted as saying by BBC Sport: “There’s a real hunger - there always is a hunger - but now there's an extra bit in that batting line-up. We want to be as ruthless as we can as a batting unit, but still play the way we do because that's our natural game. Obviously being ruthless is being part of Test cricket as well.”

Pope further noted, “I got asked on day one at Trent Bridge 'do you get told to play like that?'. No, we don't. It's just our natural games and the way we go about it. Sometimes we might score 280 to 300 in a day but that's OK and probably because we're reading situations. There might also be a day where we go and get 500 to 600 at some point in the future as well. And that's a cool thing to have.”

Under the guidance of head coach Brendon McCullum and captain Stokes, England's aggressive Bazball approach has become their nature. However, Pope admitted that there may be times when the England players will need to "manage the game a bit more carefully."

Notably, England had scored 506 runs on the opening day of the first Test against Pakistan at Rawalpindi in December 2022, so 600 runs on the board won’t be that tough a task for them, especially with the way the batters play the red-ball cricket.

Here’s the England squad for the third Test against the West Indies:

Ben Stokes (C), Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Dillon Pennington, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Joe Root, and Jamie Smith.