Ollie Pope Reinforces Status to England's No 3 Spot with Impressive 90 Versus Lions

It's hard to gauge how much of the English team's warm-up game will prove important when their Ashes contest begins not far at Perth Stadium on the coming Friday – a short span in geography or duration but ages away in significance and mood – but if it managed only enhancing Ollie Pope's assurance, that by itself has made the exercise worthwhile.

England's number three batsman – that much is certainly completely established – built on his initial innings hundred by scoring a further 90 in the second, and what was notable was not so much the quantity of scored runs but the style in which they were made. On occasion the young batsman looked commanding, striking a twelve boundaries and a couple of maximums, connecting with the ball sweetly but with fierce intent.

This was only a exhibition game against a Lions team that employed fully 11 bowlers across a match played in front of a small group of onlookers in a local ground, but it was nevertheless extremely noteworthy. To note, the England team, needing of 202 once the Lions ended their follow-on innings on 251 for six, triumphed by five wickets in hand when Jamie Smith sped the team over the winning target with a stream of boundaries.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the two other big first-innings successes, both were dismissed in the second knock, while Joe Root scored several more runs – 31 on this occasion – but was not significantly more dominant, prior to being bemused and subsequently bowled by Will Jacks. Harry Brook suffered an same fate a little later.

Bashir – who ended the game having delivered 12 bowling spells for both teams – will have encountered some of the strokes he bowled to quite aggressive. His opening six deliveries against the Lions cost 56, with McKinney feasting to bowling that if not entirely loose was certainly far from threatening.

By the conclusion the sixth spell of those deliveries, England's other bowlers had given away almost precisely the identical amount of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a somewhat less generous later on, allowing 27 from his last six. He claimed a single wicket, taking a clever, low-down snare, falling to his right side, to finish Bethell's innings for 70, facing 80 balls.

Bethell, compensating for achieving merely three runs in the initial innings, was a member of three fifty-scorers in the Lions team's leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's returns from opening batsman were more reliable than those of their No 3: he scored 66 in their first batting effort and scored 68 in their second, using 61 deliveries for his fifty, with five and two maximums, each against Bashir's's pitching. Bethell reached 68 prior to a poor shot to Ben Stokes at cover position, who held a bending grab at low down.

Jordan Cox showed like reliability, and built on his initial innings' 53 with another 57, at slightly more than a scoring rate of one. There were some remarkably beautiful hits on the way, featuring a straight drive and a hook from back-to-back Brydon Carse balls to achieve his half century.

Having missed the initial day of this match with a stomach upset and provided just the least significant of inputs to the second, Brydon Carse pitched excellently when at last provided the opportunity, with Ben McKinney and Cox among his three dismissals.

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