Pope Cements Position to England's Number Three Slot with Impressive 90 Against Lions

It's difficult to determine how significant of England's practice game will be remotely relevant when their Ashes battle begins a short distance away at the Perth venue on Friday – a brief gap in space or time but ages away in significance and environment – but if it achieved nothing more than boosting Pope's self-belief, that alone has made the exercise valuable.

England's No 3 – that point is surely completely clear – followed his first-innings hundred by scoring another 90 in the follow-up innings, and the most impressive was not merely the quantity of scored runs but the style in which they were made. Periodically the 27-year-old appeared dominant, striking a twelve fours and a pair of sixes, timing the ball perfectly but with aggressive determination.

This was only a exhibition game against a England Lions team that employed fully 11 pitchers across a match played in front of a small group of people in a local ground, but it was still very impressive. Officially, the England team, needing of 202 once the Lions ended their follow-on innings on 251 for six, triumphed by a margin of five wickets when Jamie Smith raced the team over the winning target with a stream of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the two other big first-innings successes, both were dismissed in the follow-up, while Root scored several more runs – 31 on this occasion – but was far from more dominant, prior to being confused and subsequently dismissed by Jacks. Brook suffered an similar end soon afterwards.

Bashir – who concluded the match having delivered 12 bowling spells for both teams – will have faced a portion of the batting he bowled to pretty aggressive. His first six deliveries against the Lions went for 56, with McKinney taking advantage to bowling that if not exactly wayward was surely not very threatening.

By the conclusion the sixth spell of those deliveries, the English side's three other bowlers had allowed nearly exactly the equivalent total of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir turned a slightly less giving later on, conceding 27 from his final six. He took one wicket, taking a clever, low grab, falling to his right, to finish Jacob Bethell's batting stint for 70, from 80 balls.

Bethell, redeeming managing only three in the initial innings, was among a trio of fifty-scorers in the Lions' top four. McKinney's performances from opener were more reliable than those from their number three: he notched 66 in their first innings and scored 68 in their second innings, facing 61 deliveries over his fifty, with five fours and a couple sixes, both from Bashir's pitching. Jacob Bethell got to 68 prior to a mishit to Stokes at cover, who took a bending catch at shin level.

Jordan Cox displayed like reliability, and followed his first-innings 53 with another 57, at just over a scoring rate of one. He played several exceptionally handsome strokes on the way, featuring a drive down the ground and a pull against successive Carse deliveries to attain his fifty.

Having missed the first day of this fixture with a illness and provided just the most minor of efforts to the follow-up, Carse bowled superbly when finally afforded the opportunity, with McKinney and Cox part of his three scalps.

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