Ollie Pope Achieves Unique Record with Century Against Zimbabwe

NOTTINGHAM: During the ongoing Test match at Trent Bridge, England’s prominent batter, Ollie Pope, enhanced his distinctive global record by scoring a century against Zimbabwe.

Pope crafted a remarkable innings of 171 runs in the first innings of the Test. In doing so, he has become the first batter ever to register his initial eight centuries against eight different nations in the history of Test cricket.

Previously, he was also the first to notch his initial seven centuries against seven different nations.

Before his notable innings against Zimbabwe, Pope had already recorded Test centuries against Pakistan, Ireland, India, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies.

In total, Pope stands as the 30th player to have scored centuries against a minimum of eight different teams in Test matches.

Only sixteen players, including distinguished batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar from India, Younis Khan from Pakistan, Brian Lara from the West Indies, Ricky Ponting from Australia, Kumar Sangakkara from Sri Lanka, and Jacques Kallis from South Africa, have achieved centuries against nine different teams in this format.

The right-handed batsman now has a significant opportunity to join this distinguished list by scoring a century in the Ashes series, which is slated for later in the year.

Furthermore, Ollie Pope has equaled Jonathan Trott concerning the number of Test centuries for England while batting at the No.3 position.

Wally Hammond, Ken Barrington, and David Gower are the only players with more centuries for England when batting at No.3 in Test matches.

Notably, his impressive innings, in conjunction with the centuries from openers Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley, propelled England to a score of 565/6 before captain Ben Stokes declared the innings.

At the time of filing this report, Zimbabwe’s score was 151/2 in 31 overs, trailing by 414 runs, with Brian Bennett and Sean Williams remaining not out on 80 and 20 respectively.