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

It's hard to know how significant of the English team's warm-up fixture will end up being relevant when their Ashes battle starts 10km away at Perth Stadium on Friday – no distance in geography or duration but light years away in significance and environment – but if it accomplished nothing more than boosting Ollie Pope's self-belief, that by itself has made the exercise beneficial.

England's number three batsman – that point is surely completely established – built on his first-innings hundred by notching a further 90 in the second innings, and the truly impressive was less about the total of scored runs but the way in which they were accumulated. At times the player appeared commanding, hitting a twelve fours and a couple of maximums, hitting the ball perfectly but with aggressive intent.

This was just a practice match versus a Lions squad that employed exactly 11 bowlers across a contest played in before a small group of spectators in a public park, but it was nevertheless hugely praiseworthy. For the record, the England team, set a target of 202 following the Lions ended their second innings on 251 for six, triumphed by five wickets after Jamie Smith hurried the team across the winning target with a series of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Duckett, the two other major first-innings' performers, both failed in the second innings, while Root scored further runs – 31 on this instance – but was far from more assured, before being bemused and subsequently out by Jacks. Harry Brook suffered an similar end soon afterwards.

Shoaib Bashir – who concluded the fixture having bowled 12 bowling spells for each side – will have encountered some of the strokes he bowled to quite hostile. His initial six overs against the Lions cost 56, with McKinney feasting to pitching that if not entirely poor was certainly far from threatening.

After the sixth of those deliveries, England's three other pitchers had allowed nearly exactly the identical amount of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a slightly less giving later on, conceding 27 from his final six. He claimed a single wicket, taking a sharp, low catch, falling to his right, to end Jacob Bethell's knock for 70, from 80 balls.

Jacob Bethell, redeeming managing only three runs in the initial innings, was one of three players half-centurions in the Lions' leading batsmen. McKinney's performances from opener were more reliable than the scores of their No 3: he made 66 in their first innings and improved by two in their second innings, using 61 balls over his half-century, with five fours and two maximums, the pair against Bashir's deliveries. Bethell reached 68 then a mis-hit to Stokes at cover, who held a low grab at ankle height.

Jordan Cox showed similar reliability, and built on his first-innings 53 with a further 57, at about a scoring rate of one. He played some remarkably elegant hits on the way, such as a drive down the ground and a hook off back-to-back Brydon Carse balls to reach his 50 runs.

Having missed the opening day of this game with a illness and contributed only the most minor of contributions to the second day, Brydon Carse delivered excellently when at last afforded the chance, with McKinney and Cox included in his three dismissals.

This report may be updated