Pope Cements Position to England's No 3 Slot with Bold 90 Against Lions

It is hard to determine how much of the English team's warm-up match will end up being important when their Ashes battle kicks off 10km away at Perth Stadium on Friday – a short span in geography or duration but ages away in significance and atmosphere – but if it achieved nothing more than enhancing Ollie Pope's confidence, that alone has made the effort worthwhile.

England's No 3 – this fact is certainly completely certain – built on his initial innings century by scoring an additional 90 in the second innings, and what was impressive was less about the number of runs but the way in which they were accumulated. Periodically the young batsman looked imperious, smashing a twelve boundaries and a pair of sixes, hitting the ball sweetly but with fierce purpose.

It was only a friendly against a Lions side that used exactly 11 bowlers across a contest held in amid a few dozen of onlookers in a public park, but it was still hugely praiseworthy. For the record, the England team, needing of 202 after the Lions declared their second innings on 251 for six, won by a margin of five wickets once Smith hurried the team across the conclusion with a series of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the two other significant first-innings achievers, both failed in the follow-up, while Root scored further runs – 31 on this occasion – but was not significantly more dominant, then being bemused and accordingly dismissed by Jacks. Harry Brook met an similar fate a little later.

Shoaib Bashir – who ended the fixture having delivered 12 overs for both teams – will have encountered some of the strokes he faced rather hostile. His initial six overs versus the Lions cost 56, with McKinney taking advantage to bowling that if not completely wayward was certainly far from intimidating.

After the sixth spell of those deliveries, England's three other pitchers had given away almost precisely the same number of runs – 57 – from 15, though the bowler grew a little less giving in time, giving up 27 from his remaining six. He secured one wicket, holding a clever, diving snare, diving to his right, to conclude Jacob Bethell's innings for 70, facing 80 deliveries.

Bethell, compensating for scoring just three runs in the initial innings, was one of a trio of fifty-scorers in the Lions' leading batsmen. McKinney's scores from opener were more reliable than those from their number three: he notched 66 in their first innings and went two better in their second innings, taking 61 deliveries to reach his half-century, with five fours and two maximums, the pair from Bashir's's pitching. Bethell reached 68 before a poor shot to Stokes at cover, who took a bending grab at shin level.

Cox displayed similar reliability, and backed up his initial innings' 53 with a further 57, at just over a run a ball. He produced some remarkably beautiful hits during his innings, such as a straight hit and a pull from back-to-back Carse balls to achieve his fifty.

Having missed the initial day of this game with a illness and made merely the most minor of inputs to the second, Brydon Carse pitched brilliantly when finally provided the chance, with Ben McKinney and Cox among his three wickets.

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