Pope Reinforces Status to England's No 3 Slot with Bold 90 Versus Lions

It's difficult to know how significant of the English team's warm-up match will be remotely meaningful when their Ashes series campaign kicks off 10km away at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – a short span in geography or duration but worlds away in import and mood – but if it achieved nothing more than enhancing Ollie Pope's confidence, that alone has rendered the endeavor worthwhile.

England's No 3 – this fact is certainly completely established – built on his initial innings hundred by scoring an additional 90 in the follow-up innings, and what was notable was not merely the total of runs but the style in which they were accumulated. At times the player looked commanding, smashing a dozen fours and a couple of maximums, timing the ball beautifully but with aggressive determination.

This was just a practice match versus a England Lions squad that used a total of 11 bowlers throughout a match held in front of a handful of people in a open field, but it was nonetheless hugely noteworthy. For the record, England, set a target of 202 once the Lions declared their follow-on innings on 251 for six, succeeded by a margin of five wickets when Jamie Smith sped the team over the winning target with a flurry of boundaries.

Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the remaining major first-innings' performers, both were dismissed in the second knock, while Root made several more points – 31 on this instance – but was far from more convincing, then being confused and duly bowled by Will Jacks. Brook experienced an similar end a little later.

Bashir – who finished the fixture having bowled 12 bowling spells for either team – will have found part of the strokes he confronted pretty hostile. His opening six overs against the Lions cost 56, with McKinney taking advantage to deliveries that if not completely poor was definitely not overly threatening.

After the sixth over of those deliveries, England's remaining three bowlers had conceded almost precisely the equivalent number of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir grew a slightly less leaky later on, conceding 27 from his remaining six. He secured a single wicket, holding a sharp, low snare, falling to his right, to finish Jacob Bethell's batting stint for 70, from 80 balls.

Bethell, making up for scoring just a small score in the initial innings, was among three fifty-scorers in the Lions team's top four. Ben McKinney's returns from opener were steadier than those from their number three: he scored 66 in their first innings and improved by two in their second, using 61 deliveries to reach his fifty, with five and a couple sixes, each off Bashir's deliveries. Jacob Bethell reached 68 before a mis-hit to Ben Stokes at cover, who took a low grab at low down.

Jordan Cox exhibited like consistency, and followed his first-innings 53 with another 57, at slightly more than a scoring rate of one. He produced a few remarkably beautiful shots en route, including a drive down the ground and a hook against back-to-back Brydon Carse deliveries to attain his half century.

Following his absence from the opening day of this match with a illness and made merely the smallest of inputs to the second, Carse bowled superbly when at last afforded the chance, with McKinney and Cox among his three scalps.

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