England vs Sri Lanka: Ollie Pope must seize chance to silence critics in Ben Stokes' absence

After 26 matches and more than two years, for the first time under the Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum partnership, England will tomorrow start a Test without the former on the field.

It is, let us be honest, a small miracle that it has taken this long. For much of that period, it seemed Stokes’s chronic knee issue was a ticking time bomb on his Test career, and so that his sidelining now is through a torn hamstring feels both particularly cruel and oddly reassuring; it is hard to pull one of those if you can barely move.

That the injury happened in the Hundred, just as it might have anywhere, has prompted predictable outrage, but the upshot now is that the absences of both Stokes and another Bazball ever-present in opener Zak Crawley have added a layer of intrigue to the three-match series against Sri Lanka, which begins at Old Trafford tomorrow morning.

England are a perfect 3-0 in what was always billed as a soft summer, having confected a glimpse towards the future by retiring James Anderson after the opening Test of their sweep of the West Indies. Here, though, they have been presented with a more organic window for contingency planning in the kind of scenario that, who knows, might crop up on the eve of next year’s looming Ashes tour.

England named their team yesterday, with big opportunities confirmed for Dan Lawrence as a makeshift opener after more than two years out of the side, and for Matthew Potts, the Durham seamer who excelled during the first Bazball summer, but has played only one Test, against Ireland, since.

It is an even bigger one, though, for Ollie Pope, the stand-in skipper, trying to prove ahead of time that he is the man to replace Stokes long-term.

Critics sniffed at Pope’s appointment as permanent vice-captain last May, and did so again when logic followed that he step into the big job now.

To some, the question was of how a relatively mild-mannered, diminutive, privately-educated lad from the home counties had been promoted so quickly to a place that has him down as heir to the Stokesian throne in all its grunt and glory.

Others have pointed to a lack of experience; Pope has captained just one County Championship game, three years ago, as well as a handful of T20s in the Blast. England, however, have shown with their spin and wicket-keeping selections already this summer that they are ready to hand out opportunities to learn on the job. This feels the perfect middle ground for Pope, a step up from the few tour games he has captained where Stokes has sat out, but not yet into the thrust of a high-profile series against Australia or India, or anyone away from home.

There is a decent degree of ownership in that the 26-year-old will get a three-match run (Stokes had only ever deputised for Joe Root once before being handed the captaincy full-time), but no pressure to shake things up or shape the team anew. Stokes remains orchestrator-in-chief and will be around the squad throughout.

Would Pope get the job on a permanent basis were Stokes, for whatever reason, forced away now, or perhaps walk on his own terms after the away Ashes series in 18 months’ time?

He would be the frontrunner, for sure, the man groomed for the role, but England are evidently keen to get leadership experience into the group of next generation batters that are the Surrey man’s peers, and potentially rivals for the gig.

Crawley led the ODI side against Ireland last year. Harry Brook, the temporary vice, has just captained Stokes at Northern Superchargers in the

Hundred and would be a contender to succeed Jos Buttler in the white-ball role already. Even Lawrence has had a crack at London Spirit in the same competition, with Pope among the rank and file. Make a success of this interim stint, though, and he will be cemented at the head of the queue.