Pope Strengthens Status to England's Number Three Role with Bold 90 Versus Lions

It's tough to determine how much of the English team's practice game will prove meaningful when their Ashes contest begins 10km away at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – a brief gap in geography or duration but light years away in importance and atmosphere – but if it accomplished solely enhancing Pope's confidence, that alone has rendered the effort beneficial.

England's number three batsman – that point is certainly completely clear – followed his initial innings hundred by adding a further 90 in the follow-up innings, and the truly notable was less about the total of runs but the way in which they were made. At times the player looked imperious, hitting a dozen boundaries and a two of sixes, connecting with the ball perfectly but with devilish purpose.

It was just a friendly against a Lions squad that deployed fully 11 pitchers throughout a game held in amid a small group of spectators in a public park, but it was nonetheless hugely impressive. For the record, the England team, set a target of 202 after the Lions ended their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets in hand once Smith sped the team over the finish line with a series of boundaries.

Zak Crawley and Duckett, the other two major first-innings performers, both were dismissed in the second knock, while Joe Root made several more points – 31 on this instance – but was far from more assured, then being confused and subsequently out by Will Jacks. Brook suffered an identical outcome a little later.

Bashir – who finished the game having delivered 12 overs for both teams – will have found part of the strokes he confronted rather challenging. His opening six deliveries against the Lions went for 56, with McKinney feasting to bowling that if not completely wayward was certainly not overly intimidating.

At the end the sixth spell of those deliveries, the English side's remaining three pitchers had conceded roughly the identical total of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir grew a little less generous as time passed, giving up 27 from his final six. He took one dismissal, making a sharp, diving catch, diving to his right, to end Jacob Bethell's knock for 70, off 80 deliveries.

Jacob Bethell, making up for managing only three runs in the first innings, was one of three half-centurions in the Lions team's leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's returns from opening batsman were steadier than the scores of their No 3: he scored 66 in their first batting effort and scored 68 in their follow-up, taking 61 deliveries for his half-century, with five boundaries and two sixes, the pair from Bashir's's bowling. Jacob Bethell reached 68 before a mishit to Stokes at cover, who held a low grab at low down.

Jordan Cox displayed like reliability, and backed up his first-innings 53 with a further 57, at just over a scoring rate of one. He played a few remarkably elegant strokes during his innings, including a drive down the ground and a hook from consecutive Carse balls to reach his fifty.

Following his absence from the initial day of this fixture with a stomach upset and made merely the smallest of efforts to the second, Carse delivered superbly when at last provided the shot, with McKinney and Jordan Cox included in his three dismissals.

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