After registering two back to back failures in the first Test against India at Edgbaston, the England selectors decided to drop Dawid Malan, the left-handed middle-order batsman for the next Test at Lord's.
Malan scored 8 and 20 in the two innings of the first Test which made the England selectors think otherwise. Besides his batting failure, he also was held accountable for drop catches in both the innings. One of them was a dop chance from Kohli who went on to score 149 runs in the first innings.
Tino Best, the West Indian bowler did not miss the opportunity to mock Malan on this occasion. He said that he was looking forward to “watch the 2nd Test minus Malan”. In his tweet, he also joked that the selectors had “finally” seen his tweets and made the right decision to drop him, adding a subsequent hashtag that said, “Was playing for his good looks”.
Can’t wait ???? to watch the 2nd Test @HomeOfCricket minus Malan ???????? finally the selectors saw my tweets @DGoughie ???????????????? #Wasplayingforhisgoodlooks ????????????????
— Tino95 (@tinobest) August 6, 2018
Malan has made way for 20-year-old Ollie Pope of Surrey who has had a brilliant 2018 season so far scoring 684 runs in Division One of the County Championship at an average of 85.50, with three centuries (a highest of 158 not out) and one fifty.
On the selection, national selector Ed Smith had this to say: "Ollie Pope has made an exceptional start to his first-class career. He has reached a 1,000 first-class runs in just 15 matches and is the first division's stand-out batsman this season with 684 runs at 85. The selection panel believe that Ollie's performances and character suggest he is well suited to international cricket.
