“Unbelievable scenes when...” - AB de Villiers echoes Rahul Dravid’s praise for Ollie Pope

Former South African cricketer AB de Villiers lauded England batter Ollie Pope for his heroics in the Hyderabad Test. He said that his knocks speak for themselves when some like Rahul Dravid come and praise your performance.

Ollie Pope played one of his finest knocks in India by a foreign batter. He was one of the main reasons why England clinched the first match by 28 runs. The batter played spin even better than the Indian batters, which speaks volumes about his innings.

When it seemed that England would lose the game, Ollie Pope stepped up big-time for his team. He first reduced the deficit and then made sure the hosts set up a big target for India to chase, which they failed to chase and lost the game to go 1-0 down in the series.

Ollie Pope ended with a knock of 196 runs and took England to a big total. The highlight of his innings was the way he played spin. The batter played sweeps and reverse sweeps magnificently and made spinners look clueless.

After the game, India head coach Rahul Dravid also lauded Ollie Pope and praised him for the kind of innings he played. Apart from him, even skipper Rohit Sharma hailed the batter and said that it was the best innings he had ever seen by a foreign player in India.

AB de Villiers echoed the voice of Rahul Dravid said that no one expected Ollie Pope to play such kind of innings. The former South African skipper hailed the batters’ calm and composed nature. Speaking in a video posted on his YouTube channel, he explained:

“The man of the moment, the legend himself, Ollie Pope. No one saw this coming. Unbelievable scenes when Rahul Dravid comes out and recognizes something special. It is very true what he says.

“I watched almost every single ball and it was just incredible how this guy worked the ball around on a very difficult track against the best spinners in the world. It doesn’t get any harder than that. He was just calm and composed.”

999 out of a thousand bowlers would be gone – AB de Villiers on Tom Hartley’s debut

Tom Hartley also was among the key architect behind England’s win in the first Test. He had a horrible outing in the first innings and then picked 7 wickets in the second innings to win the game for his team.

AB de Villiers said that with the way Tom Hartley started, 999 out of a thousand bowlers would be gone. He hailed the character shown by the spinner and explained:

“The way he started, 0/51 from his first six overs of a Test match, I promise you maybe 999 out of a thousand bowlers would be gone; they would give up. There’s no coming back from that. Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma hitting Hartley all over the place.

“For any player just to half sort of come back into the contest is already incredible, but the way he came back, getting nine wickets in this Test match, is unbelievable. So, well done, Tom Hartley, showing a lot of character. A lot of heart from Heartly.”

The second Test between India and England will be played on 2nd February at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam.