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

It's hard to gauge how significant of the English team's warm-up fixture will be remotely meaningful when their Ashes contest starts a short distance away at Perth Stadium on the coming Friday – no distance in space or time but worlds away in significance and mood – but if it managed only boosting Pope's confidence, that on its own has rendered the effort valuable.

The English side's number three batsman – that point is undoubtedly completely established – built on his first-innings hundred by notching an additional 90 in the follow-up innings, and the truly notable was less about the number of scored runs but the style in which they were made. On occasion the young batsman seemed imperious, striking a dozen boundaries and a pair of sixes, hitting the ball perfectly but with aggressive determination.

This was only a friendly versus a Lions side that employed a total of 11 bowlers during a game staged in amid a few dozen of onlookers in a open field, but it was still very impressive. For the record, the England team, chasing of 202 once the Lions closed their follow-on innings on 251 for six, succeeded by a margin of five wickets when Jamie Smith hurried the team over the conclusion with a stream of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Duckett, the other two big first-innings' achievers, both failed in the second innings, while Joe Root scored several more runs – 31 on this time – but was not significantly more convincing, prior to being puzzled and duly bowled by Jacks. Harry Brook met an identical fate a little later.

Shoaib Bashir – who ended the fixture having bowled 12 bowling spells for each side – will have encountered part of the hitting he bowled to rather challenging. His initial six deliveries versus the Lions conceded 56, with Ben McKinney taking advantage to pitching that if not entirely wayward was surely not overly threatening.

At the end the sixth over of that period, England's other bowlers had conceded nearly exactly the equivalent amount of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir grew a little less generous later on, giving up 27 from his remaining six. He claimed one dismissal, making a sharp, diving grab, falling to his right, to conclude Jacob Bethell's batting stint for 70, off 80 deliveries.

Jacob Bethell, compensating for achieving merely three in the initial innings, was a member of three players with fifties in the Lions team's top order. McKinney's scores from opener were steadier than the scores of their number three: he made 66 in their first innings and scored 68 in their follow-up, taking 61 deliveries for his fifty, with five fours and two maximums, the pair against Bashir's's deliveries. Jacob Bethell made 68 before a mis-hit to Stokes at cover position, who held a bending grab at ankle height.

Cox showed comparable steadiness, and backed up his first-innings 53 with a further 57, at slightly more than a scoring rate of one. There were some remarkably elegant hits en route, featuring a straight drive and a hook from successive Carse balls to reach his half century.

Having missed the opening day of this match with a stomach issue and made merely the most minor of contributions to the second, Carse delivered excellently when eventually given the chance, with Ben McKinney and Jordan Cox among his three wickets.

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