MIKE DICKSON: I knew Ollie Pope was special as I watched him pile up the runs at school aged 13

The early summer of 2016 on the verdant acres of a Surrey school’s playing fields and Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley were locked in a duel.

Cranleigh versus Tonbridge was always one of the most fiercely contested matches of the season and this occasion became a particular showcase for the elite level of schoolboy cricket that can be found on the southern circuit of the independent sector.

Batting first in a 50-over match, Pope scored a majestic 125 from his early position of No 3 as Cranleigh reached 311. In response Crawley — Pope’s opposite number as captain — stroked a glorious 140 that told of an equally outstanding potential, and he nearly won the game for the visitors before they fell marginally short.

The overall standard befitted two of the best school sides in the country that year, which was not entirely surprising.

Most of the 22 players taking part in the match — including, full disclosure, my son Sam — have gone on to play high-level club and university cricket. A few went better than that, with Marcus O’Riordan and Toby Pettman making it to first-class cricket with Kent and Nottinghamshire respectively.

England batter Ollie Pope (circled) shone playing cricket for Cranleigh School

Pope and Zak Crawley are now England teammates after their schoolboy rivalry

Another playing that day, Ben Earl, was on a different path and after joining rugby union side Saracens has so far won 13 caps for England in the back row.

Yet it was already clear, cricket-wise, that there was a duo whose talent was on a different tier to the rest. Seven years on, they are occupying two of the top three batting places for England against Australia.

In our household there has been a sense of vicarious pride in the rise of Pope to one of the great offices of state in English sport, having first encountered him as a 13 year-old boy, and spent many hours watching his development.

It was always going to be the case as our son was a fellow cricket scholar at Cranleigh, a year below, on the kind of scheme that has supplied so many of the England team in recent years.

In some ways this is not an ideal state of affairs for the game, although it is hardly the fault of the independent system that it keeps the flame of top-class schools cricket burning in an era when it has largely disappeared from the state sector.

There is no doubt that Pope hugely benefited from the facilities on offer, and the expert tuition from an outstanding coach, Stuart Welch.

During the winter, Pope and the small handful of other scholars would spend hours in the school’s indoor cricket lane, where he began to perfect the reverse scoops that were an early feature of his game.

It was serious stuff. Among Welch’s favoured training methods was to ramp two bowling machines up to 80mph, setting one on bouncer length and another to serve up a toe-crushing yorker. With a ball in each hand, Welch would then disguise which machine would deliver. Not that Pope’s teenage years were entirely dominated by his chosen sport. A definite advantage of pursuing elite cricket or rugby at a young age is that it still allows for a relatively balanced life in the teenage years.

While he had midweek nets with Surrey — having been identified as one of the club’s leading prospects — and time off for the odd overseas tour, Pope took a full part in school life, completed A-levels and played hockey and football. Given that his grandfather of several generations ago was Cranleigh’s first headmaster, he may well have ended up there anyway, irrespective of his cricket.

After spending countless sessions on the boundary with his parents, Richard and Sue, it is no surprise that Pope is such a grounded and likeable individual, and was popular among his cohort at school.

The Australians should, however, not be duped by Pope’s sunny disposition as it comes with a steely and deeply competitive streak. As a schoolboy captain (and the wicketkeeper) he drove the standards in others. Any outfielder caught loitering on the job, as schoolboys are wont to do, would be given a vocal and immediate reminder of their responsibilities.

Pope’s final year at Cranleigh saw him make more than 900 runs at an average of 75 and with that faded the remaining thoughts of taking up a place at Loughborough University.

Saracens rugby star Ben Earl was also a promising cricketer at Tonbridge School

The months after leaving school saw Pope make a late-season debut for Surrey. During the summer he stayed with us during one of his first four-day games for the county, as his usual accommodation was temporarily unavailable.

He was a very polite house guest. While their lives have subsequently moved in different directions, my son and Pope retain something in common in that they have always borne a strong physical resemblance to each other.

When Sam needed to borrow someone’s ID to gain entry to the pub shortly before turning 18, a commonplace practice among young Londoners, he knew who he could turn to.

That was our experience of the esteemed England Test vice-captain when he was younger — exceptional in some ways, but refreshingly normal in so many others.