Ollie Pope Cements Status to England Cricket's No 3 Role with Strong 90 Versus Lions

It's hard to determine how relevant of the English team's warm-up fixture will be remotely relevant when their Ashes contest begins a short distance away at Perth Stadium on Friday – no distance in geography or duration but worlds away in import and environment – but if it achieved only strengthening Pope's self-belief, that by itself has made the exercise beneficial.

England's number three batsman – that point is certainly absolutely established – built on his initial innings hundred by scoring an additional 90 in the follow-up innings, and the most remarkable was not merely the total of scored runs but the style in which they were accumulated. Periodically the player seemed dominant, striking a dozen boundaries and a two of sixes, connecting with the ball sweetly but with fierce determination.

This was just a exhibition game versus a Lions team that deployed fully 11 pitchers during a game played in front of a small group of people in a public park, but it was nonetheless extremely noteworthy. For the record, the England team, needing of 202 after the Lions closed their follow-on innings on 251 for six, triumphed by five wickets after Jamie Smith raced the team past the winning target with a flurry of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Duckett, the remaining major first-innings achievers, both failed in the second knock, while Joe Root scored several more runs – 31 on this time – but was not enormously more assured, then being confused and duly bowled by Will Jacks. Harry Brook experienced an identical end soon afterwards.

Shoaib Bashir – who ended the fixture having bowled 12 overs for either team – will have encountered part of the hitting he faced quite hostile. His first six deliveries against the Lions cost 56, with Ben McKinney tucking in to deliveries that if not exactly poor was definitely not very threatening.

At the end the sixth spell of that period, England's other pitchers had allowed almost precisely the identical total of points – 57 – from 15, though the bowler grew a little less giving as time passed, conceding 27 from his final six. He claimed a single wicket, holding a smart, low catch, falling to his right side, to end Jacob Bethell's knock for 70, from 80 balls.

Jacob Bethell, compensating for scoring merely a small score in the initial innings, was among a trio of half-centurions in the Lions team's leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's scores from opener were more reliable than those from their No 3: he made 66 in their first batting effort and scored 68 in their second innings, using 61 balls for his half-century, with five and a couple six-hit shots, the pair against Bashir's's bowling. Jacob Bethell got to 68 before a mishit to Stokes at cover position, who held a bending grab at low down.

Jordan Cox exhibited comparable steadiness, and followed his initial innings' 53 with an additional 57, at about a run a ball. There were some remarkably elegant hits en route, such as a drive down the ground and a hook against back-to-back Brydon Carse deliveries to attain his 50 runs.

After missing the first day of this fixture with a stomach upset and made just the least significant of efforts to the second day, Brydon Carse pitched brilliantly when finally given the opportunity, with McKinney and Jordan Cox included in his three dismissals.

This report may be updated