Ollie Pope Strengthens Claim to England Cricket's Number Three Role with Impressive 90 Against Lions

It's tough to gauge how significant of the English team's warm-up game will prove meaningful when their Ashes series contest kicks off a short distance away at Perth Stadium on the coming Friday – no distance in space or time but light years away in significance and mood – but if it managed nothing more than strengthening Pope's assurance, that on its own has rendered the effort beneficial.

The English side's No 3 – this fact is surely totally established – followed his first-innings hundred by notching another 90 in the follow-up innings, and the truly remarkable was not merely the number of runs but the way in which they were made. On occasion the 27-year-old seemed dominant, striking a dozen boundaries and a pair of sixes, connecting with the ball beautifully but with devilish determination.

It was just a friendly against a England Lions side that deployed fully 11 pitchers across a match held in amid a few dozen of spectators in a public park, but it was still hugely impressive. Officially, England, set a target of 202 once the Lions declared their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets after Smith raced the team across the winning target with a series of boundaries.

Zak Crawley and Duckett, the two other big first-innings successes, both failed in the second knock, while Joe Root scored additional points – 31 on this instance – but was not enormously more convincing, prior to being bemused and accordingly out by Jacks. Harry Brook met an identical end soon afterwards.

Shoaib Bashir – who finished the fixture having bowled 12 bowling spells for both teams – will have faced a portion of the hitting he faced rather challenging. His initial six overs versus the Lions conceded 56, with McKinney tucking in to deliveries that if not exactly loose was certainly far from dangerous.

At the end the sixth of those overs, England's other pitchers had given away almost precisely the identical number of runs – 57 – from 15, though the bowler became a little less generous later on, conceding 27 from his final six. He claimed a single wicket, taking a clever, low catch, falling to his right, to end Bethell's batting stint for 70, off 80 deliveries.

Bethell, making up for managing just a small score in the initial innings, was among a trio of half-centurions in the Lions' top four. McKinney's scores from opening batsman were more reliable than the scores of their No 3: he scored 66 in their first innings and scored 68 in their follow-up, taking 61 balls for his half-century, with five boundaries and two six-hit shots, the pair from Bashir's deliveries. Bethell got to 68 then a poor shot to Ben Stokes at cover position, who took a bending grab at ankle height.

Jordan Cox showed similar steadiness, and built on his initial innings' 53 with a further 57, at about a scoring rate of one. He played several outstandingly beautiful shots on the way, including a straight drive and a pull shot against successive Carse deliveries to reach his fifty.

Having missed the opening day of this match with a stomach issue and contributed just the most minor of contributions to the second day, Carse delivered brilliantly when at last provided the opportunity, with Ben McKinney and Cox included in his three scalps.

This report may be updated