Ollie Pope Reinforces Claim to England's Number Three Spot with Impressive 90 Versus Lions

It is hard to gauge how significant of the English team's practice game will be remotely relevant when their Ashes series battle kicks off a short distance away at the Perth venue on Friday – no distance in space or time but worlds away in importance and environment – but if it managed solely strengthening Ollie Pope's confidence, that on its own has made the endeavor valuable.

England's number three batsman – that point is undoubtedly totally established – built on his first-innings century by scoring a further 90 in the second, and the truly notable was not merely the quantity of scored runs but the way in which they were scored. At times the player looked dominant, striking a twelve boundaries and a pair of sixes, hitting the ball sweetly but with aggressive determination.

This was merely a practice match versus a England Lions team that deployed exactly 11 bowlers throughout a game staged in front of a handful of people in a local ground, but it was nonetheless extremely noteworthy. To note, the England team, needing of 202 following the Lions ended their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets in hand once Jamie Smith hurried the team past the winning target with a stream of boundaries.

Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the other two major first-innings' achievers, both were dismissed in the second knock, while Root scored several more points – 31 on this occasion – but was not significantly more dominant, before being puzzled and accordingly bowled by Will Jacks. Brook experienced an similar fate soon afterwards.

Shoaib Bashir – who concluded the match having bowled 12 overs for either team – will have found part of the batting he confronted pretty hostile. His opening six deliveries against the Lions went for 56, with McKinney tucking in to pitching that if not completely wayward was surely not overly dangerous.

At the end the sixth over of those overs, England's remaining three bowlers had given away almost precisely the same total of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a slightly less leaky as time passed, allowing 27 from his last six. He claimed a single wicket, taking a sharp, low-down grab, diving to his right, to finish Jacob Bethell's batting stint for 70, facing 80 balls.

Bethell, compensating for achieving only three runs in the first innings, was a member of three players players with fifties in the Lions team's top four. McKinney's performances from opener were more reliable than those of their No 3: he scored 66 in their first batting effort and scored 68 in their second innings, facing 61 balls over his half-century, with five and two maximums, the pair off Bashir's's pitching. Bethell got to 68 before a mis-hit to Stokes at cover, who took a stooping grab at shin level.

Cox showed like consistency, and backed up his initial innings' 53 with an additional 57, at about a run per delivery. There were a few remarkably elegant hits during his innings, featuring a drive down the ground and a pull shot from back-to-back Brydon Carse balls to attain his half century.

After missing the first day of this fixture with a stomach upset and contributed just the most minor of inputs to the follow-up, Carse delivered superbly when at last provided the chance, with McKinney and Jordan Cox included in his three scalps.

This report may be updated