Ollie Pope Cements Status to England Cricket's Number Three Slot with Strong 90 Against Lions

It's tough to know how significant of England's practice fixture will be remotely relevant when their Ashes campaign begins not far at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – a short span in space or time but worlds away in significance and mood – but if it achieved solely enhancing Pope's confidence, that by itself has made the exercise worthwhile.

The English side's number three batsman – that much is undoubtedly absolutely established – built on his first-innings century by scoring another 90 in the follow-up innings, and the truly impressive was less about the quantity of scored runs but the manner in which they were made. At times the 27-year-old appeared imperious, smashing a twelve boundaries and a couple of maximums, timing the ball perfectly but with devilish intent.

It was just a friendly against a Lions squad that deployed exactly 11 bowlers throughout a game held in before a small group of onlookers in a local ground, but it was nonetheless extremely impressive. For the record, England, needing of 202 once the Lions ended their follow-on innings on 251 for six, succeeded by five wickets when Jamie Smith sped the team across the finish line with a series of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the remaining significant first-innings performers, both fell short in the follow-up, while Joe Root made several more points – 31 on this instance – but was not enormously more dominant, before being bemused and duly dismissed by Jacks. Harry Brook suffered an same end soon afterwards.

Bashir – who concluded the fixture having delivered 12 bowling spells for each side – will have found some of the strokes he faced quite aggressive. His initial six deliveries against the Lions went for 56, with Ben McKinney tucking in to deliveries that if not entirely loose was surely not very dangerous.

After the sixth of that period, England's three other pitchers had given away roughly the identical number of runs – 57 – from 15, though the bowler turned a little less generous later on, giving up 27 from his remaining six. He secured one dismissal, holding a clever, diving catch, leaning to his right side, to finish Jacob Bethell's batting stint for 70, facing 80 balls.

Jacob Bethell, compensating for achieving only three runs in the first innings, was a member of three fifty-scorers in the Lions team's top order. McKinney's returns from opening batsman were steadier than the scores of their No 3: he notched 66 in their first innings and scored 68 in their second innings, using 61 balls for his half-century, with five and two sixes, the pair off Bashir's bowling. Jacob Bethell reached 68 prior to a mis-hit to Stokes at cover position, who took a bending catch at shin level.

Jordan Cox showed like reliability, and backed up his first-innings 53 with an additional 57, at just over a run per delivery. He played several outstandingly elegant strokes during his innings, including a straight hit and a hook off consecutive Brydon Carse deliveries to achieve his 50 runs.

After missing the initial day of this game with a stomach upset and contributed only the smallest of efforts to the follow-up, Brydon Carse pitched superbly when eventually afforded the opportunity, with Ben McKinney and Cox among his three wickets.

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