Pope Reinforces Claim to England's No 3 Role with Strong 90 Against Lions

It is hard to determine how significant of England's practice fixture will be remotely meaningful when their Ashes campaign starts 10km away at Perth Stadium on Friday – a brief gap in space or time but ages away in importance and mood – but if it accomplished only boosting Pope's self-belief, that alone has made the exercise beneficial.

The English side's No 3 – this fact is surely totally clear – built on his initial innings century by scoring a further 90 in the second, and the truly remarkable was not so much the total of scored runs but the manner in which they were scored. Periodically the 27-year-old appeared dominant, smashing a dozen fours and a pair of maximums, hitting the ball beautifully but with aggressive determination.

This was merely a friendly versus a England Lions team that used a total of 11 bowlers throughout a contest played in before a handful of spectators in a public park, but it was nevertheless hugely praiseworthy. To note, the England team, chasing of 202 after the Lions closed their second innings on 251 for six, succeeded by five wickets in hand when Jamie Smith raced the team across the winning target with a stream of boundaries.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the remaining significant first-innings' achievers, both were dismissed in the second knock, while Joe Root scored several more points – 31 on this occasion – but was not significantly more convincing, before being confused and accordingly dismissed by Jacks. Harry Brook met an identical fate shortly after.

Bashir – who ended the match having delivered 12 bowling spells for each side – will have encountered a portion of the strokes he confronted quite challenging. His initial six deliveries against the Lions went for 56, with McKinney tucking in to pitching that if not entirely poor was definitely far from intimidating.

After the sixth spell of those deliveries, England's three other bowlers had given away almost precisely the same number of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir grew a little less giving in time, giving up 27 from his final six. He claimed one wicket, holding a sharp, low grab, diving to his right side, to finish Jacob Bethell's innings for 70, from 80 balls.

Bethell, making up for achieving just a small score in the opening knock, was one of three players half-centurions in the Lions' top four. McKinney's performances from opening batsman were steadier than those of their No 3: he notched 66 in their initial knock and went two better in their second innings, taking 61 deliveries to reach his 50 runs, with five fours and two sixes, the pair from Bashir's's bowling. Bethell reached 68 then a mishit to Ben Stokes at cover position, who held a bending catch at ankle height.

Jordan Cox showed comparable consistency, and backed up his first-innings 53 with an additional 57, at slightly more than a scoring rate of one. There were some outstandingly elegant shots on the way, featuring a straight drive and a pull against back-to-back Carse balls to achieve his 50 runs.

Having missed the first day of this fixture with a stomach upset and provided merely the smallest of efforts to the follow-up, Carse pitched excellently when at last afforded the opportunity, with Ben McKinney and Cox among his three scalps.

This report will update