Virat Kohli warned me this will be last of flat decks: Ollie Pope

Ollie Pope

England batsman Ollie Pope has revealed that India captain Virat Kohli had walked up to him during the opening Test of the four-match series and warned "this is the last of the flat wickets" his team would see on the tour. Starting the series on a rousing note in February, England succumbed to the spin duo of R Ashwin and Axar Patel to suffer heavy defeats in the next three Tests.

"In the second innings the pitch started spinning quite a lot," Pope said during Surrey's pre-season media day at the Oval, according to ESPNcricinfo. "I remember standing at the non-striker's end and Kohli came up to me and said ‘this is the last of the flat wickets'. At that point I knew it was probably going to be quite a challenging rest of the series from a batting point of view."

Back for the pre-season training with Surrey for next week's County Championship opener against Gloucestershire at Bristol, Pope said he is relieved to be out of the bubble lifestyle. "The Indian bubble was a pretty tough one," he said. "They were quite business-like hotels so there's not a massive amount going on, there's no real outdoor space to get used to, have a run-around or kick a ball around or anything normal.

"So being back and strolling to go and get a coffee or anything like that, it's just that bit of normality that I think humans need, really. "It does have its challenges and everyone deals with them in slightly different ways but it is very nice to be out of those bubbles and let free a little bit."