England lay down early Ashes marker as Lions claim landmark win over Australia A

Richard Dawson's side prevailed by nine wickets in Melbourne in the penultimate match of the tour as Ollie Robinson finished with seven wickets

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Melbourne (day four of four): England Lions 428 & 20-1, Australia A 176 & 271 f/o - England Lions won by nine wickets

The 2021-22 Ashes might still be 21 months away, but England have landed the first jab in the build-up to the series against Australia after the Lions claimed a landmark win in Melbourne over the hosts' second string.

England Lions had never before beaten an Australia A side home or away in seven previous meetings, but they broke that duck with a nine-wicket success with a team containing a smattering of players who will have realistic aims of being involved when the two senior sides meet for real.

Though painted as a one-off unofficial Test with first-class status, England have given outings on this tour to several of the squad who will go to Sri Lanka next month.

Zak Crawley, Dom Sibley, Keaton Jennings, and Dom Bess all featured for the final time before they are scheduled to leave for South Asia.

Australia had Ashes opener Marcus Harris and World Cup batsman Usman Khawaja in their ranks, alongside the likes of Kurtis Patterson and skipper Moises Henriques but they were no match for England's fledglings.

The tourists were targetting an innings win on day four having reduced Australia A to 180 for 5 at the close on the third evening of the day/night pink ball game.

Patterson ensured England Lions would bat again with a dogged 94 from 166 deliveries, assisted by Jack Wildermuth's (37) after rain had earlier threatened to affect the outcome.

But Sussex's Ollie Robinson cleaned up the tail to finish with match figures of 7-147 while Craig Overton, who played in the fourth Ashes Test last summer, could boast a return of 6-101.

^{Ollie Robinson took seven wickets in Melbourne to complete victory}

Late resistance from the home side meant England needed 20 to wrap-up the victory and they showed a bout of nerves when first-innings centurion Sibley (3) was dismissed by Jackson Bird with just five on the board.

But Crawley (10 not out) and captain Jennings (5 not out) - in place of the injured Lewis Gregory - steered England Lions to victory to leave coach Richard Dawson thrilled with the result.

"The way we competed across all four days, session by session, was really impressive," he said. 

"Once we got ahead of the game and posted that first innings total, we held the ascendancy. 

"We kept it really basic, breaking things down to keep it simple and the effort within the squad was high class.

"The fast bowlers were made to work really hard, having asked the Aussies to follow on, but they’ve put in the work on their fitness to be able to achieve that.

"The preparation that we had done prior to the game, including the physically demanding game in Hobart, put us in a good position to perform how we did in this game."

As messieurs Sibley, Crawley, Jennings and Bess depart for Sri Lanka the Lions will wrap-up the tour against New South Wales Second XI at North Dalton Park, Wollongong, starting on Sunday, March 1.

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