Pope Cements Claim to England Cricket's Number Three Slot with Strong 90 Versus Lions

It is difficult to determine how much of the English team's preparatory game will be remotely meaningful when their Ashes campaign begins 10km away at Perth Stadium on Friday – a brief gap in space or time but worlds away in significance and mood – but if it accomplished only strengthening Pope's self-belief, that by itself has made the exercise valuable.

England's number three batsman – this fact is undoubtedly completely certain – built on his first-innings hundred by adding another 90 in the follow-up innings, and what was impressive was less about the quantity of scored runs but the style in which they were scored. Periodically the young batsman looked dominant, hitting a dozen fours and a two of maximums, connecting with the ball sweetly but with devilish purpose.

This was only a exhibition game against a England Lions side that employed a total of 11 pitchers throughout a match played in amid a few dozen of people in a public park, but it was nevertheless hugely noteworthy. For the record, the England team, chasing of 202 following the Lions closed their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets after Smith hurried the team across the finish line with a series of boundaries.

Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the other two big first-innings' successes, both failed in the follow-up, while Joe Root added additional points – 31 on this occasion – but was not enormously more dominant, prior to being puzzled and accordingly bowled by Will Jacks. Harry Brook met an same fate a little later.

Shoaib Bashir – who concluded the fixture having bowled 12 overs for each side – will have faced part of the hitting he faced quite hostile. His first six deliveries versus the Lions conceded 56, with Ben McKinney feasting to bowling that if not completely loose was surely far from dangerous.

After the sixth over of that period, the English side's other bowlers had conceded almost precisely the same total of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a little less giving as time passed, conceding 27 from his final six. He secured a single wicket, taking a smart, low-down snare, diving to his right side, to finish Bethell's batting stint for 70, from 80 balls.

Bethell, compensating for achieving only three in the opening knock, was a member of three players half-centurions in the Lions' leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's scores from opener were steadier than the scores of their No 3: he notched 66 in their first innings and went two better in their follow-up, facing 61 deliveries to reach his 50 runs, with five and a couple six-hit shots, each against Bashir's deliveries. Jacob Bethell got to 68 then a mishit to Ben Stokes at cover position, who made a stooping catch at ankle height.

Cox exhibited like steadiness, and built on his first-innings 53 with another 57, at slightly more than a run a ball. There were a few remarkably beautiful strokes on the way, such as a straight drive and a hook off back-to-back Carse deliveries to achieve his fifty.

Having missed the first day of this match with a stomach upset and made merely the least significant of inputs to the second day, Carse delivered brilliantly when at last afforded the shot, with Ben McKinney and Cox part of his three wickets.

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