Ollie Pope Strengthens Status to England Cricket's No 3 Slot with Impressive 90 Versus Lions
It's difficult to know how much of England's practice fixture will end up being relevant when their Ashes series battle begins 10km away at Perth Stadium on Friday – a brief gap in space or time but light years away in import and environment – but if it managed only enhancing Ollie Pope's assurance, that alone has made the effort beneficial.
England's No 3 – this fact is surely completely established – built on his initial innings century by scoring an additional 90 in the second, and what was remarkable was not merely the number of runs but the way in which they were made. On occasion the 27-year-old looked imperious, striking a dozen fours and a couple of maximums, hitting the ball perfectly but with aggressive determination.
This was just a friendly versus a Lions team that employed fully 11 pitchers during a match held in front of a handful of people in a open field, but it was still very impressive. Officially, the England team, set a target of 202 once the Lions closed their follow-on innings on 251 for six, triumphed by five wickets after Smith sped the team across the winning target with a stream of boundaries.
Crawley and Duckett, the other two big first-innings' performers, both fell short in the second innings, while Joe Root made further points – 31 on this occasion – but was not significantly more assured, then being bemused and duly bowled by Jacks. Brook met an similar end a little later.
Shoaib Bashir – who concluded the fixture having bowled 12 bowling spells for either team – will have encountered a portion of the strokes he confronted quite hostile. His initial six overs against the Lions cost 56, with McKinney tucking in to bowling that if not exactly loose was surely far from dangerous.
After the sixth spell of those overs, England's three other bowlers had conceded nearly exactly the equivalent number of points – 57 – from 15, though Bashir became a little less generous in time, allowing 27 from his remaining six. He took one wicket, taking a clever, diving catch, leaning to his right, to end Jacob Bethell's batting stint for 70, off 80 deliveries.
Bethell, compensating for achieving only three in the first innings, was one of a trio of fifty-scorers in the Lions team's top order. McKinney's scores from opener were more reliable than the scores of their No 3: he notched 66 in their first batting effort and improved by two in their second innings, using 61 deliveries to reach his 50 runs, with five fours and two six-hit shots, both against Bashir's deliveries. Jacob Bethell reached 68 then a mishit to Stokes at cover position, who took a low catch at shin level.
Cox exhibited comparable reliability, and followed his initial innings' 53 with a further 57, at just over a scoring rate of one. There were some exceptionally beautiful strokes en route, including a drive down the ground and a pull shot off consecutive Brydon Carse deliveries to achieve his fifty.
Following his absence from the initial day of this match with a illness and made merely the smallest of efforts to the second day, Carse pitched excellently when finally afforded the shot, with Ben McKinney and Cox among his three dismissals.
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