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

It's hard to know how significant of England's warm-up fixture will be remotely important when their Ashes series battle begins 10km away at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – a brief gap in space or time but light years away in import and mood – but if it accomplished solely enhancing Pope's self-belief, that by itself has rendered the exercise worthwhile.

England's number three batsman – this fact is surely completely clear – followed his first-innings hundred by scoring another 90 in the second, and the truly impressive was not merely the total of scored runs but the style in which they were scored. At times the player appeared imperious, striking a dozen boundaries and a pair of sixes, hitting the ball beautifully but with devilish determination.

It was just a friendly against a Lions squad that employed fully 11 bowlers across a match staged in before a small group of onlookers in a local ground, but it was still hugely praiseworthy. Officially, the England team, set a target of 202 once the Lions declared their follow-on innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets after Jamie Smith sped the team over the finish line with a stream of boundaries.

Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the remaining significant first-innings successes, both were dismissed in the follow-up, while Joe Root added further runs – 31 on this time – but was not significantly more convincing, before being bemused and accordingly out by Will Jacks. Harry Brook suffered an same outcome a little later.

Bashir – who ended the match having bowled 12 bowling spells for both teams – will have encountered part of the strokes he faced rather challenging. His first six deliveries against the Lions cost 56, with Ben McKinney feasting to deliveries that if not exactly loose was definitely far from dangerous.

By the conclusion the sixth spell of those deliveries, the English side's other pitchers had conceded nearly exactly the identical total of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a little less generous later on, giving up 27 from his final six. He took a single wicket, holding a smart, diving catch, diving to his right, to conclude Jacob Bethell's innings for 70, facing 80 balls.

Bethell, compensating for scoring merely three runs in the opening knock, was a member of three fifty-scorers in the Lions team's top four. McKinney's performances from opening batsman were more consistent than those of their No 3: he made 66 in their initial knock and scored 68 in their second innings, taking 61 balls over his fifty, with five and two six-hit shots, the pair off Bashir's pitching. Bethell made 68 prior to a mis-hit to Ben Stokes at cover, who made a stooping grab at shin level.

Jordan Cox showed similar consistency, and built on his first-innings 53 with another 57, at just over a scoring rate of one. He played several remarkably elegant strokes on the way, featuring a drive down the ground and a pull shot from back-to-back Carse deliveries to reach his 50 runs.

Following his absence from the initial day of this match with a illness and provided just the smallest of contributions to the second day, Carse delivered brilliantly when finally provided the shot, with McKinney and Jordan Cox included in his three dismissals.

This report will update