Ollie Pope Strengthens Claim to England Cricket's Number Three Role with Bold 90 Versus Lions

It's hard to gauge how much of the English team's warm-up game will end up being relevant when their Ashes series contest kicks off 10km away at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – a short span in space or time but worlds away in import and mood – but if it accomplished nothing more than boosting Pope's self-belief, that by itself has rendered the effort valuable.

The English side's number three batsman – that much is surely absolutely established – built on his first-innings century by adding another 90 in the second innings, and what was remarkable was less about the number of scored runs but the way in which they were made. At times the young batsman seemed commanding, striking a twelve boundaries and a two of sixes, hitting the ball perfectly but with devilish purpose.

This was only a friendly against a Lions team that deployed a total of 11 bowlers during a match held in front of a handful of onlookers in a local ground, but it was nonetheless extremely noteworthy. To note, England, needing of 202 after the Lions ended their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets when Smith sped the team across the conclusion with a stream of boundaries.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the two other big first-innings performers, both fell short in the follow-up, while Root added additional points – 31 on this time – but was not significantly more assured, then being bemused and duly dismissed by Jacks. Brook experienced an identical end a little later.

Shoaib Bashir – who finished the match having bowled 12 bowling spells for either team – will have found part of the batting he bowled to pretty challenging. His first six overs against the Lions conceded 56, with Ben McKinney tucking in to deliveries that if not entirely poor was certainly not very intimidating.

At the end the sixth spell of those overs, the English side's remaining three pitchers had given away roughly the equivalent amount of runs – 57 – from 15, though the bowler became a slightly less generous in time, conceding 27 from his remaining six. He secured a single wicket, taking a smart, low grab, leaning to his right, to end Bethell's batting stint for 70, from 80 balls.

Jacob Bethell, compensating for managing merely three runs in the initial innings, was among three players with fifties in the Lions' leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's scores from opening batsman were more consistent than those of their number three: he notched 66 in their first innings and scored 68 in their second, facing 61 deliveries over his fifty, with five fours and a couple maximums, the pair off Bashir's deliveries. Bethell made 68 before a mishit to Stokes at cover position, who held a stooping grab at ankle height.

Cox displayed similar reliability, and backed up his initial innings' 53 with an additional 57, at just over a scoring rate of one. He produced several remarkably elegant hits en route, featuring a drive down the ground and a pull against consecutive Carse deliveries to reach his 50 runs.

Having missed the initial day of this fixture with a stomach issue and contributed only the smallest of efforts to the second, Brydon Carse delivered brilliantly when at last given the opportunity, with McKinney and Jordan Cox among his three dismissals.

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