The Clapham boys are finally parting ways.
Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope have been bound at the hip for years. Born a month apart, the pair have been cut from the same privately educated cloth. The two prodigies who captained their school teams against each other played the same national age-group competitions together and scaled the heights of international cricket together.
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The journey ended in Adelaide.
Crawley made 85. An innings where he batted as well as he ever has in an England shirt. He was on one run off 27 balls, but was calm. Driving when the opportunity arose, pulling powerfully in front of square also.
“Good players pull the ball square of the wicket,” Graeme Swann said on TNT Sports. “Great players pull it in front of square. That’s the best I’ve seen him play.”
Pope, on the other hand, arrived needing a miracle in the city of churches. Since his dismissal in the first innings at Perth, he has looked like a tortured soul. A pre-match press conference in Brisbane spoke to a muddled mind where he gave a 200-word word salad answer to what England’s approach is with the bat that concluded with, “it’s just about having that complete clarity”.
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Right.
Careers end in Australia. Of the 50 men to play for England on an Ashes tour this century, 26 have never played for their country again. Pope’s relative youth, 27, means he still has a chance to come again. His domestic record is excellent and bulk runs will see him return to the equation again. But it looks increasingly unlikely that chance will be in Melbourne next week. In 16 innings against Australia, he averages 17. Walking out to bat today, he needed at least a century to stave off the feeling his place in the England XI was hanging by a thread. Instead, he made 17.
Crawley defended Pope after his teammate fell for just 17 runs in the second innings (PA Wire)
“I feel like Popey gets a hard time sometimes,” Crawley said of his friend and teammate after play. “I’m trying to work out why. He’s got big hundreds when we need him to against tough opposition.
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“Yeah, he’s had a couple of quiet games, but I think he’s an unbelievably good player who plays in a really hard role at number three. I think he’s playing well.”
For years, the two have been the Bazball brothers. Backed on qualitative metrics as much as quantitative, where people who know the sport said they could play. Pope was run shy in junior age-group cricket at Surrey but had the temperament and the technique that saw him backed through and make his international debut at 20. And Crawley was the same, but as an adult. His domestic record at Kent was modest, but his tall frame and ability to dominate a day meant that people believed he was tailor-made for the big stage.
Players of potential but with over 60 Test appearances each, both have been given more opportunities than any other batters in history, with this Ashes in mind. Back talent, and let it shine through.
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But in Pope’s last eight matches, all of which have come against Australia and India, he has averaged 28.7 with only two scores above 50. A pattern has also emerged, where Pope starts the series strongly but then fades away. Pope has spoken publicly about his inability to sleep during a Test match. In the first innings of matches, he averages 45, in the second, it is 20. Sleep-deprived and run-deprived.
Pat Cummins of Australia celebrates taking the wicket of Ollie Pope (Getty Images)
His last century came in the opening match of the series against India last summer, following which he made the point he was determined to kick on and make “runs after runs after runs”. He has since averaged 24 and made a single 50.
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You can’t be a player of potential forever. And the returns for Pope have never arrived. He’ll always have Hyderabad.
Crawley, however, continues to tease. As of the end of the 2025 summer, no batter in Test history had opened the batting so often, but averaged so little. He started the Ashes with a pair, but unlike Pope, whose initial failure overwhelmed him, Crawley brushed it off and came back with quality. A 76 and 44 at Brisbane impressed and frustrated in equal measure. So too his 85 here.
“No, if anything, I felt really relaxed today,” Crawley answered when it was put to him that he looked like a man batting with extra motivation. “I think that’s why I played nicely.”
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Nevertheless, his contributions have been excellent innings that were gone too soon. It is unclear whether they are evidence of his career turning a corner or if they are instead one final gaslighting.
Opener Crawley delivered a battling 85 to delay England’s defeat (AFP via Getty Images)
The Ashes, in theory, are still alive, but England’s post-mortem is already gathering pace. Who stays, and who goes.
When Pope won his 50th Test cap last year, it was Crawley who presented it to him.
“Popey, we’ve known each other a long time,” Crawley said then. “We’ve played with and against each other for a long time, and now we obviously run Clapham together.
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“I was thinking about when we were 17 playing together and what we’d have given then to just play one game for England. You’re one of the best players in the world, and it’s why this is still just the beginning.”
A year later in Adelaide, it turned out to be much closer to the end.
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