Pope Cements Position to England Cricket's Number Three Spot with Strong 90 Against Lions

It's difficult to know how much of the English team's preparatory fixture will be remotely relevant when their Ashes contest begins 10km away at Perth Stadium on the coming Friday – a brief gap in space or time but worlds away in importance and environment – but if it accomplished only strengthening Pope's assurance, that by itself has rendered the exercise valuable.

The English side's No 3 – that much is certainly totally certain – followed his first-innings hundred by scoring an additional 90 in the follow-up innings, and the most notable was not so much the total of scored runs but the manner in which they were made. On occasion the 27-year-old seemed dominant, hitting a dozen fours and a two of sixes, hitting the ball sweetly but with devilish intent.

This was just a practice match against a Lions team that employed exactly 11 bowlers during a contest played in amid a small group of onlookers in a local ground, but it was nonetheless extremely praiseworthy. Officially, England, needing of 202 after the Lions closed their second innings on 251 for six, triumphed by five wickets when Smith sped the team past the winning target with a stream of fours and sixes.

Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the other two big first-innings' successes, both failed in the second innings, while Root scored additional runs – 31 on this time – but was not significantly more convincing, then being bemused and accordingly out by Will Jacks. Harry Brook met an same outcome shortly after.

Bashir – who finished the fixture having delivered 12 bowling spells for each side – will have found a portion of the strokes he bowled to rather hostile. His initial six overs versus the Lions conceded 56, with Ben McKinney feasting to deliveries that if not completely wayward was surely far from intimidating.

At the end the sixth of those deliveries, the English side's three other bowlers had allowed roughly the equivalent amount of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a slightly less giving later on, conceding 27 from his last six. He claimed one wicket, taking a sharp, low snare, leaning to his right side, to end Jacob Bethell's innings for 70, off 80 balls.

Bethell, making up for achieving merely three in the initial innings, was a member of three players half-centurions in the Lions' top four. Ben McKinney's returns from opener were more reliable than the scores of their No 3: he notched 66 in their initial knock and scored 68 in their follow-up, using 61 balls over his half-century, with five boundaries and a couple maximums, the pair from Bashir's's deliveries. Bethell got to 68 before a mis-hit to Stokes at cover, who held a stooping catch at low down.

Jordan Cox displayed comparable steadiness, and backed up his initial innings' 53 with a further 57, at about a scoring rate of one. He produced several exceptionally elegant shots on the way, such as a straight hit and a pull from back-to-back Brydon Carse balls to reach his half century.

Following his absence from the opening day of this game with a stomach issue and made just the least significant of contributions to the second, Brydon Carse bowled excellently when at last afforded the chance, with McKinney and Cox included in his three scalps.

This report will update