Pope Cements Position to England's No 3 Role with Strong 90 Against Lions

It is tough to know how significant of the English team's warm-up fixture will end up being meaningful when their Ashes battle begins a short distance away at the Perth venue on Friday – a brief gap in space or time but light years away in importance and atmosphere – but if it accomplished only boosting Pope's confidence, that on its own has made the exercise valuable.

The English side's No 3 – this fact is undoubtedly completely certain – followed his first-innings century by scoring another 90 in the follow-up innings, and the truly notable was not so much the quantity of runs but the manner in which they were scored. On occasion the young batsman seemed commanding, striking a twelve boundaries and a two of maximums, connecting with the ball perfectly but with devilish determination.

This was only a exhibition game against a Lions team that used exactly 11 bowlers across a game held in front of a small group of people in a local ground, but it was nevertheless extremely impressive. To note, England, set a target of 202 after the Lions ended their follow-on innings on 251 for six, won by a margin of five wickets after Smith raced the team past the conclusion with a flurry of boundaries.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the remaining big first-innings successes, both failed in the second knock, while Root scored further runs – 31 on this instance – but was far from more convincing, prior to being confused and subsequently out by Jacks. Brook met an identical outcome shortly after.

Bashir – who finished the match having delivered 12 bowling spells for both teams – will have found some of the batting he confronted quite challenging. His initial six deliveries against the Lions went for 56, with Ben McKinney tucking in to deliveries that if not completely wayward was definitely not overly threatening.

By the conclusion the sixth of that period, England's other pitchers had given away nearly exactly the identical number of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir turned a slightly less leaky in time, allowing 27 from his final six. He claimed a single wicket, taking a sharp, low-down catch, diving to his right, to end Bethell's knock for 70, facing 80 deliveries.

Jacob Bethell, redeeming managing just three in the initial innings, was a member of a trio of players with fifties in the Lions' leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's performances from opener were steadier than those of their No 3: he made 66 in their first innings and went two better in their second innings, facing 61 balls over his fifty, with five boundaries and two maximums, the pair from Bashir's pitching. Bethell reached 68 before a mis-hit to Stokes at cover position, who took a low grab at shin level.

Cox displayed comparable steadiness, and backed up his initial innings' 53 with another 57, at slightly more than a scoring rate of one. There were some remarkably elegant shots on the way, including a straight drive and a hook off successive Carse balls to reach his half century.

Following his absence from the initial day of this match with a stomach upset and contributed merely the most minor of efforts to the follow-up, Brydon Carse bowled brilliantly when finally afforded the shot, with McKinney and Jordan Cox among his three wickets.

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