Ollie Pope Reinforces Status to England's Number Three Spot with Strong 90 Against Lions

It is difficult to know how significant of the English team's warm-up match will end up being relevant when their Ashes series battle begins a short distance away at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – no distance in space or time but ages away in significance and atmosphere – but if it achieved nothing more than strengthening Ollie Pope's assurance, that by itself has made the exercise valuable.

England's No 3 – that point is undoubtedly totally clear – built on his initial innings ton by adding a further 90 in the second innings, and the most notable was less about the number of runs but the style in which they were accumulated. Periodically the young batsman looked imperious, striking a twelve fours and a couple of sixes, timing the ball beautifully but with devilish intent.

It was only a friendly versus a England Lions team that deployed exactly 11 bowlers throughout a match played in front of a handful of onlookers in a public park, but it was nonetheless extremely impressive. Officially, the England team, needing of 202 after the Lions declared their second innings on 251 for six, succeeded by five wickets after Smith raced the team past the winning target with a flurry of boundaries.

Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the two other significant first-innings' performers, both were dismissed in the follow-up, while Joe Root made additional points – 31 on this time – but was far from more assured, prior to being puzzled and subsequently dismissed by Jacks. Harry Brook met an similar end soon afterwards.

Shoaib Bashir – who finished the game having bowled 12 bowling spells for both teams – will have encountered part of the hitting he confronted quite hostile. His first six overs versus the Lions cost 56, with McKinney taking advantage to bowling that if not entirely wayward was certainly not overly intimidating.

After the sixth over of those overs, England's other bowlers had conceded almost precisely the same number of runs – 57 – from 15, though the bowler grew a slightly less generous as time passed, conceding 27 from his last six. He claimed a single wicket, holding a sharp, low catch, falling to his right side, to end Bethell's knock for 70, from 80 deliveries.

Bethell, redeeming managing only three runs in the opening knock, was among a trio of players with fifties in the Lions' leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's scores from opener were more consistent than the scores of their No 3: he made 66 in their first batting effort and scored 68 in their follow-up, facing 61 deliveries to reach his half-century, with five and two maximums, each against Bashir's deliveries. Bethell got to 68 then a mis-hit to Ben Stokes at cover, who held a low catch at shin level.

Cox exhibited similar consistency, and followed his first-innings 53 with a further 57, at slightly more than a scoring rate of one. He produced several remarkably handsome strokes on the way, featuring a straight hit and a pull off successive Brydon Carse deliveries to reach his fifty.

After missing the initial day of this match with a stomach issue and contributed just the most minor of contributions to the second, Carse bowled excellently when at last provided the chance, with McKinney and Jordan Cox among his three wickets.

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