Jamie Smith is proving to be England's man for a crisis, while Ollie Pope is struggling to avoid a crisis of his own, writes Stephan Shemilt.

Jamie Smith has rescued England so often in his nascent career – once in every three Test series – that the time has come to ask if he is the person to avert crises in the first place.

Home series against West Indies and Sri Lanka are about as gentle an introduction to Test cricket as they come for an England player, but Jamie Smith was now in at the deep end. A