Pope Strengthens Claim to England's No 3 Slot with Impressive 90 Against Lions
It is hard to gauge how much of England's warm-up fixture will prove important when their Ashes campaign begins 10km away at Perth Stadium on Friday – no distance in geography or duration but ages away in import and atmosphere – but if it accomplished nothing more than boosting Ollie Pope's self-belief, that alone has rendered the exercise valuable.
The English side's No 3 – that point is surely totally clear – followed his initial innings century by adding an additional 90 in the second innings, and the truly notable was not so much the total of runs but the manner in which they were accumulated. On occasion the player seemed commanding, hitting a dozen boundaries and a couple of maximums, connecting with the ball beautifully but with aggressive purpose.
It was only a practice match versus a England Lions side that deployed fully 11 bowlers throughout a game staged in front of a small group of people in a local ground, but it was nevertheless very noteworthy. For the record, the England team, needing of 202 after the Lions ended their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets in hand when Jamie Smith raced the team over the winning target with a series of boundaries.
Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the remaining significant first-innings performers, both failed in the second knock, while Root made additional points – 31 on this time – but was not significantly more assured, then being confused and subsequently bowled by Jacks. Harry Brook met an similar fate soon afterwards.
Shoaib Bashir – who ended the fixture having delivered 12 overs for both teams – will have found some of the batting he bowled to quite challenging. His opening six deliveries against the Lions went for 56, with Ben McKinney tucking in to deliveries that if not exactly wayward was definitely not overly dangerous.
By the conclusion the sixth over of those deliveries, England's remaining three pitchers had given away roughly the identical amount of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir turned a somewhat less leaky as time passed, giving up 27 from his last six. He took one wicket, making a sharp, low snare, falling to his right, to end Bethell's knock for 70, from 80 balls.
Jacob Bethell, redeeming scoring merely three in the first innings, was a member of a trio of fifty-scorers in the Lions team's leading batsmen. Ben McKinney's scores from opening batsman were more reliable than those of their No 3: he made 66 in their initial knock and scored 68 in their second, taking 61 deliveries to reach his fifty, with five and a couple sixes, each off Bashir's pitching. Jacob Bethell got to 68 before a mis-hit to Ben Stokes at cover, who made a stooping catch at low down.
Cox displayed comparable consistency, and built on his first-innings 53 with an additional 57, at about a scoring rate of one. He played a few remarkably handsome strokes during his innings, including a drive down the ground and a pull shot against successive Carse deliveries to attain his half century.
After missing the initial day of this fixture with a stomach upset and made merely the smallest of contributions to the follow-up, Brydon Carse bowled brilliantly when finally provided the shot, with McKinney and Cox among his three wickets.
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