Ollie Pope cements claim to England’s No 3 slot with bold 90 against Lions
It is hard to know how much of England’s warm-up game will be remotely relevant when their Ashes campaign begins 10km away at Perth Stadium on Friday – no distance in space or time but light years away in import and atmosphere – but, if it achieved nothing more than boosting Ollie Pope’s confidence, that alone has made the exercise worthwhile.England’s No 3 – his place in the first XI is now surely certain – followed his first-innings century against the Lions by scoring another 90 in the second, and what was impressive was not so much the number of runs but the manner in which they were scored.At times the 27-year-old looked imperious, hitting a dozen fours and a pair of sixes, timing the ball sweetly but with devilish intent.It was only a friendly against opponents that used fully 11 bowlers across a match played in front of an audience of dozens in a public park, but it was still hugely impressive.For the record, England, set a target of 202 after the Lions declared their second innings on 251 for six, won by five wickets after Jamie Smith sped the team across the finish line with an impatient stream of boundaries.
Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the two other big first-innings successes, both failed in the second knock while Joe Root scored several more runs – 31 on this occasion – but was not enormously more convincing, before being bemused and duly bowled by Will Jacks.Harry Brook met an identical fate soon afterwards.Though given England’s opponents, Shoaib Bashir – who bowled 12 overs for each side – will have found some of the batting he faced pretty hostile.His first six overs against the Lions went for 56, with Ben McKinney in particular tucking in to bowling that if not exactly loose was certainly not very threatening.At the end of the sixth of those overs, England’s three other bowlers had conceded almost precisely the same number of runs – 57 – from 15, though Bashir improved in conceding 27 from his remaining six.
He took one wicket, taking a smart return catch, falling to his right, to end Jacob Bethell’s innings for 70, off 80 balls.Bethell, making up for managing only three in the first innings, was one of three half-centurions in the Lions’ top four.McKinney’s returns from opener were more consistent than those of their No 3: he scored 66 in their first innings and went two better in their second, taking 61 deliveries over his half-century, with five fours and two sixes, both off Bashir’s bowling, and reaching 68 before he mis-hit to Ben Stokes at cover, who took a stooping catch at ankle height.Jordan Cox showed similar consistency and followed his first-innings 53 with another 57, at just over a run a ball.There were some outstandingly handsome shots on the way, including a straight drive and a pull off consecutive Brydon Carse deliveries to reach his half-century.
Having missed the first day, with a stomach upset and made only the most minor of contributions to the second, Carse bowled excellently when finally given the chance, with McKinney and Cox among his three wickets.Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotionPreparation all but complete, Carse is looking forward to a series that “is going to be amazing” and said England were now perfectly primed.“I think if you look across the group of seamers, they’ve all got a decent amount of overs in and some of the batters have spent time at the crease,” he said of this warm-up game.“The first Test might be a little bit different to preparation, but this week was all about getting miles in their legs.So, look, it’s exciting.
I think we’ve got a group of six bowlers who, whatever dynamic we go with, will relish those conditions,“The guys have all had a good three days here, some guys have been out here a bit longer and some guys have been in New Zealand, so the group of players have had a lot of cricket over the last couple of months,So, yeah, everyone’s ready to go,”
China voices ‘extreme disappointment’ with Dutch minister at centre of car chip row
The Chinese government has expressed “extreme disappointment” with the Dutch minister at the heart of a row over chip supply to the car industry.A spokesperson for the ministry of commerce was responding to a Guardian interview with Vincent Karremans on Thursday in which the politician described the standoff between China and the European Union as a “wake-up call” for western leaders.The spokesperson said: “China has noted the recent remarks made by Dutch minister of economic affairs Karremans in media interviews. China expresses extreme disappointment and strong dissatisfaction with such remarks that confuse right and wrong, distort facts and persist in a single-minded course.“The profound lesson this semiconductor supply chain crisis has taught the world is that administrative measures should not be used to improperly interfere with corporate operations
People in the US: how are your holiday shopping plans being affected by Trump’s tariffs and the cost of living?
We’d like to find out more about your holiday spending plans this year. The New York Times reported on Friday that the Trump administration is pivoting to an affordability message and considering lowering some tariffs rates.The administration has floated policies that would lower prices for coffee and fruit, spoken about a 50-year mortgage proposal, and Trump has mused on social media about giving Americans $2,000 funded by tariff revenue.A Harris poll from September found that 74% of Americans said their monthly household costs had gone up by more than $100.We want to hear from you
Reeves’s plan to ditch income tax rise prompts government bond sell-off
UK bond markets took fright on Friday after it emerged that Rachel Reeves had ditched plans for a manifesto-busting increase in income tax at this month’s autumn budget.On a day of choppy trading in the City, the cost of UK government borrowing rose by the most in a single day since early July, when a tearful appearance by Reeves in parliament spooked investors.The yield – in effect the interest rate – on 10-year government bonds, which are known as gilts, jumped by more than 0.13 percentage points to trade at about 4.575%, the highest level in a month
’Tis the season for dubious TV adverts | Letters
The issues you highlighted in your editorial are real, but please don’t think that advertisers care about them (The Guardian view on the John Lewis Christmas ad: a modern story of fathers and sons, 7 November).This ad is a shameless attempt to make consumers think they are doing something worthwhile in buying overpriced gifts in a failing store that used to share its profits with staff but hasn’t paid them any bonus in the past few years.If anything, the relentless pressure of advertising (where the Christmas season starts earlier each year) only serves to pile more pressure on people who are struggling. The cynicism of these ads – pretending to care while desperately trying to trigger the Pavlovian Christmas shopping response – is truly depressing.Chris LinwardSalford Your editorial’s claim that the new John Lewis Christmas ad was “harking back to the 1990s” and evoked “a less complicated time to be a young man” would be news to anyone who remembers that time as the era of laddism and Loaded, and the underlying unease about men’s emotional lives as shown in novels such as Tim Lott’s White City Blue and Nick Hornby’s About a Boy
US markets struggle amid tech sell-off and economic uncertainty
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Thames Water tried to make MP pay its legal fees of up to £1,400 an hour
Thames Water argued that an MP should be forced to pay its hefty legal costs after he represented the interests of the British public in court, a move he described as “retaliation” for pushing for government control of the crisis-hit utility, the Guardian can reveal.The UK’s highest court this week rejected Thames Water’s arguments that the Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard should pay legal fees as high as £1,400 per hour.Britain’s biggest water company has been on the verge of collapse for several years as it struggles under the weight of net debt of £17bn, built up over decades since privatisation. Thames Water’s effective owners have asked for 15 years of leniency from environmental fines from the government to try to recover.Maynard was granted unusual permission to represent the public interest in a court battle over an investor bailout for Thames Water
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