Pope Cements Claim to England's Number Three Slot with Strong 90 Against Lions
It's difficult to gauge how much of the English team's warm-up fixture will prove important when their Ashes series battle starts not far at the Perth venue on Friday – no distance in space or time but light years away in import and mood – but if it managed solely strengthening Pope's assurance, that alone has rendered the exercise valuable.
England's No 3 – that point is surely completely clear – followed his first-innings century by notching another 90 in the follow-up innings, and the most impressive was not merely the total of runs but the way in which they were accumulated. Periodically the 27-year-old appeared dominant, hitting a dozen fours and a pair of maximums, timing the ball perfectly but with fierce purpose.
It was only a practice match against a England Lions team that used fully 11 bowlers throughout a contest played in front of a handful of spectators in a local ground, but it was still hugely noteworthy. Officially, England, set a target of 202 after the Lions declared their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets after Smith sped the team across the finish line with a flurry of fours and sixes.
Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the other two big first-innings successes, both were dismissed in the second innings, while Root scored additional runs – 31 on this occasion – but was not significantly more convincing, then being puzzled and accordingly dismissed by Will Jacks. Harry Brook met an identical outcome soon afterwards.
Shoaib Bashir – who concluded the match having bowled 12 overs for either team – will have faced a portion of the strokes he confronted quite challenging. His first six overs versus the Lions cost 56, with Ben McKinney tucking in to pitching that if not completely wayward was certainly far from intimidating.
By the conclusion the sixth over of that period, the English side's three other pitchers had given away almost precisely the identical amount of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir grew a little less giving later on, giving up 27 from his final six. He took a single wicket, taking a clever, low-down grab, falling to his right side, to end Jacob Bethell's knock for 70, from 80 balls.
Jacob Bethell, making up for scoring only three runs in the initial innings, was among three fifty-scorers in the Lions' top order. Ben McKinney's scores from opening batsman were more reliable than those from their number three: he notched 66 in their first innings and scored 68 in their second innings, using 61 deliveries for his fifty, with five fours and two six-hit shots, the pair against Bashir's pitching. Bethell made 68 prior to a poor shot to Ben Stokes at cover position, who made a stooping catch at ankle height.
Cox displayed like steadiness, and followed his first-innings 53 with a further 57, at slightly more than a run a ball. He played some remarkably beautiful hits during his innings, featuring a drive down the ground and a pull shot against consecutive Brydon Carse deliveries to attain his fifty.
Having missed the initial day of this game with a stomach upset and made only the smallest of contributions to the second, Carse delivered brilliantly when at last afforded the opportunity, with McKinney and Jordan Cox among his three wickets.
This report may be updated
