Pope Strengthens Status to England Cricket's No 3 Spot with Strong 90 Versus Lions

It's tough to gauge how much of the English team's practice fixture will prove relevant when their Ashes battle starts a short distance away at Perth Stadium on Friday – a short span in geography or duration but ages away in importance and environment – but if it achieved nothing more than boosting Ollie Pope's confidence, that alone has made the exercise worthwhile.

The English side's number three batsman – this fact is surely completely certain – built on his first-innings ton by notching another 90 in the follow-up innings, and the most notable was not merely the number of scored runs but the manner in which they were scored. At times the young batsman seemed imperious, striking a twelve fours and a couple of sixes, connecting with the ball sweetly but with devilish purpose.

It was merely a friendly against a Lions squad that deployed fully 11 bowlers during a contest held in front of a small group of people in a local ground, but it was nevertheless very impressive. To note, the England team, set a target of 202 after the Lions ended their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets in hand once Jamie Smith hurried the team past the winning target with a stream of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Duckett, the remaining big first-innings' performers, both failed in the second innings, while Root made additional runs – 31 on this occasion – but was far from more assured, then being puzzled and subsequently dismissed by Jacks. Brook suffered an same outcome soon afterwards.

Bashir – who concluded the match having bowled 12 overs for each side – will have faced some of the batting he confronted pretty challenging. His first six overs versus the Lions cost 56, with Ben McKinney taking advantage to pitching that if not completely wayward was surely not very dangerous.

At the end the sixth over of those deliveries, England's three other bowlers had conceded roughly the equivalent total of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a slightly less leaky as time passed, conceding 27 from his last six. He took one dismissal, making a sharp, diving catch, diving to his right side, to conclude Jacob Bethell's knock for 70, facing 80 deliveries.

Jacob Bethell, redeeming achieving only three runs in the first innings, was among three half-centurions in the Lions' leading batsmen. McKinney's returns from opener were more consistent than the scores of their number three: he notched 66 in their initial knock and improved by two in their second, taking 61 deliveries over his 50 runs, with five and two six-hit shots, each against Bashir's's deliveries. Bethell made 68 prior to a poor shot to Ben Stokes at cover, who took a low catch at ankle height.

Cox exhibited comparable reliability, and followed his first-innings 53 with an additional 57, at slightly more than a run per delivery. He produced a few exceptionally elegant shots on the way, such as a drive down the ground and a pull shot from successive Carse deliveries to reach his half century.

Having missed the opening day of this fixture with a stomach upset and made merely the least significant of inputs to the second day, Brydon Carse bowled brilliantly when at last given the opportunity, with McKinney and Jordan Cox among his three dismissals.

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