Pope impresses the faithful amid the Scarborough sea-mists

HUW TURBERVILL AT SCARBOROUGH: He has a similar build and modest strut to Joe Root (no pressure there then), and his bat twiddling could come from the Alec Stewart manual

^{Surrey batsman Ollie Pope}

Ollie Pope picked up more devout followers with an assured batting display at Scarborough this afternoon, even with spectators struggling to see it at times amid the sea-mists.

"Will Pope play for England? Is the Pope a catholic?" is the joke doing the rounds.

The Surrey wicketkeeper-batsman, who started out in the county's under-nines, came into this match against Yorkshire top of the Division One run charts with 585 at 84, topped up by 117 in the win over Somerset at Guildford. He also made 158 against the Tykes earlier this season at The Oval.

He has a similar build and modest strut to Joe Root (no pressure there then), and his bat twiddling could come from the Alec Stewart manual. His defence also looks very solid, getting a big stride in when defending on the front foot.

He has kept tidily enough in this match in the absence of Ben Foakes, who is with the Lions. But it is his batting that people are talking about. Especially his cover-driving.

He could well play in England Lions' 'Test' versus India A at Worcester next month.

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There was a lot to think about here for him. Yorkshire had made a useful total of 342 in front of another fine crowd, 3,909, only just down on day one's 4,384, and then their accurate bowlers made the visitors work hard for their runs.

Mists rolled across the ground like a magician's conjuring tricks, and the number of hold-ups was in double figures.

Yorkshire's attack was a little samey with four right-arm seamers - blame Adil Rashid for that - but they gave precious little away, especially captain Steve Patterson.

Jack Brooks found some swing and Tim Bresnan seemed to have some of that old snap and bounce back.

Pope played a beautiful drive off Bresnan when he was on one; that made onlookers whisper "shot" the moment it left the bat. There was just a hint of width, but still...

Another for three off the same bowler soon followed and he had been in quite some time before he was beaten, a jaffa from Ben Coad.
He had a reliable partner in Theunis de Bruyn, but once he went for a well-organised 38, the onus appeared to fall on Pope.

As it happened Morne Morkel came in to play a lively cameo, including a thumping six over midwicket into the wooden benches. 

When the umpires finally took them off, Pope had 34 composed runs, and Morne 18, Surrey still having much work to do at 219 for 7, 123 in arrears.