Pope Cements Position to England's Number Three Spot with Strong 90 Versus Lions

It is hard to gauge how much of the English team's preparatory fixture will be remotely important when their Ashes battle starts 10km away at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – a brief gap in geography or duration but worlds away in import and atmosphere – but if it managed only enhancing Ollie Pope's assurance, that by itself has rendered the exercise valuable.

The English side's No 3 – that much is certainly absolutely clear – built on his first-innings ton by scoring a further 90 in the follow-up innings, and what was impressive was less about the number of scored runs but the manner in which they were scored. On occasion the young batsman seemed dominant, smashing a dozen boundaries and a pair of maximums, hitting the ball sweetly but with aggressive purpose.

This was only a exhibition game versus a England Lions team that used fully 11 pitchers across a contest staged in front of a few dozen of people in a public park, but it was still extremely impressive. For the record, the England team, needing of 202 following the Lions closed their second innings on 251 for six, triumphed by five wickets when Jamie Smith raced the team past the winning target with a series of boundaries.

Crawley and Duckett, the other two big first-innings successes, both fell short in the second knock, while Root scored several more points – 31 on this occasion – but was not enormously more convincing, prior to being bemused and duly dismissed by Will Jacks. Brook experienced an similar outcome soon afterwards.

Shoaib Bashir – who finished the fixture having delivered 12 bowling spells for both teams – will have encountered a portion of the hitting he faced pretty challenging. His initial six overs against the Lions cost 56, with Ben McKinney taking advantage to pitching that if not entirely wayward was certainly far from threatening.

At the end the sixth of those overs, England's remaining three bowlers had given away nearly exactly the same total of runs – 57 – from 15, though the bowler turned a slightly less leaky as time passed, conceding 27 from his last six. He secured one dismissal, taking a clever, diving grab, leaning to his right side, to end Bethell's batting stint for 70, off 80 deliveries.

Bethell, compensating for scoring merely three runs in the opening knock, was a member of a trio of half-centurions in the Lions' top four. Ben McKinney's performances from opener were steadier than those of their No 3: he notched 66 in their initial knock and went two better in their second, using 61 deliveries over his half-century, with five fours and a couple maximums, both against Bashir's's bowling. Jacob Bethell got to 68 prior to a poor shot to Stokes at cover, who held a stooping catch at low down.

Jordan Cox displayed comparable consistency, and backed up his first-innings 53 with another 57, at just over a run per delivery. He produced several exceptionally handsome shots en route, including a drive down the ground and a pull off successive Brydon Carse deliveries to reach his fifty.

After missing the first day of this match with a stomach upset and contributed only the most minor of inputs to the second day, Brydon Carse pitched excellently when eventually given the opportunity, with McKinney and Cox included in his three wickets.

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