British & Irish Lions vs AUNZ Invitational XV live: Latest score and updates as tourists play final fixture before Tests
This clash in Adelaide comes a week prior to the first Test in Brisbane, with Andy Farrell rotating again after his presumed Test team rather failed to sizzle against the Brumbies in midweek. That might mean that there are still a fair few places up for grabs in the 23 for next week, with those involved today - including Owen Farrell for the first time this tour - hoping to seize them.
Farrell will no doubt be hoping for a more complete, cohesive performance after a few too many clunks in the Lions' recent outings, but the scratch side that they are facing could well cause problems. This trans-Tasman team has come together at short notice but has all sorts of quality in the ranks, with a number of past, present and future All Blacks and Wallabies out to impress.
Lions prevail despite patchy performance against Brumbies to leave Test selection questions
Let's begin by looking back on the midweek action, and another patchy performance from Andy Farrell's tourists. Having named what looked his likely Test team, the Lions head coach might have expected better against the Brumbies.
Lions prevail after patchy performance against Brumbies to leave selection questions
Brumbies 24-36 Lions: Andy Farrell had named a strong side for the clash in Canberra but a statement showing did not arrive
Harry Latham-Coyle12 July 2025 09:00
British and Irish Lions vs AUNZ Invitational XV live
With the first Test against the Wallabies now just a week away, the British and Irish Lions have one last chance to tune up as they face an AUNZ Invitational XV in Adelaide. After several clunky showings, is this the day the Lions really find their stride - or can the scratch side they are facing give them something else to fret about?
Kick off is at 11am BST.
Harry Latham-Coyle11 July 2025 11:13
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
England must drop Ollie Pope for Jacob Bethell if they are to win Ashes
A prime feature of the last two Ashes series in Australia that England have won has been the consistency of the selection of their batsmen. Andrew Strauss kept his same top six in 2010-11. So did Mike Gatting in 1986-87, apart from the one Test when Ian Botham was injured. Or put it another way: a sure sign that England are losing an Ashes series in Australia is when they chop and change their batting. Pace bowlers have to be rotated in a five-Test series. If batsmen are being rotated, it is a hallmark of weakness. In this context the decision to drop Ollie Pope has to be taken before the fourth Test at Old Trafford against India. Pope, 27, has to be dropped because four of England's top five batsmen – all except Joe Root – are too similar in age, too similar in background, too similar in experience and too similar in their approach. The attitude or philosophy of Pope, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and Harry Brook is the same: Safety last. It is a structural weakness. The result is patterns like more than half of England's side being dismissed for zero in their first innings at Edgbaston, and more than half of their batsmen being bowled at Lord's. Crawley and Duckett have proved themselves to be England's most productive opening pair since the departed knights, Strauss and Alastair Cook. In this match both were guilty of batsman error in one innings and guiltless in the other. Crawley did the hard part in his confrontation with Jasprit Bumrah, before throwing his wicket away, and proved his toughness, whatever impression to the contrary he may give; Duckett has assets in addition to his audacity. A loose Zak Crawley brings up India's third wicket of the morning session 🇮🇳 — Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) July 13, 2025 As for Harry Brook, No 5 is the position for a counter-attacker who is a law unto himself. It is Pope who is too much of a good thing. Deduct his double-century against Ireland and his 171 against Zimbabwe earlier this season, and his average of 32 is too low, his inconsistency too much. Twice in this humdinger of a match Pope has had the opportunity to bring off a run-out with a direct hit. On both occasions he did not give himself the best chance of executing a dismissal because he did not set himself before taking aim. This same impulsiveness is all too apparent in his batting at the start of an innings: he can defend, and leave the ball, but at the outset it is all about getting bat on ball, and often playing across the line in this process. Telegraph Sport 's cricket correspondent Nick Hoult spelt out the case after Pope had scored 171 against Zimbabwe (who have since been hit for 374 not out by the less than highly rated Wiaan Mulder). 'Picking Ollie Pope over Jacob Bethell to bat at No 3 against India is the fair call but that does not make it the right one,' wrote Hoult. Bethell the victim of realpolitik The gist is that Bethell, 21 was made unselectable. Having distinguished himself in the winter series in New Zealand, when he scored 260 runs in his five innings and batted at No 3 as if born to the role, he played no cricket at all in the first five months of this calendar year except for a couple of innings as a stand-in in the IPL. Realpolitik, not selection, decided as much: the ECB did not want to ruffle the Indian board by withdrawing any more England players from their tournament. So when Bethell should have been playing County Championship cricket for Warwickshire in their top order, and familiarising himself with the process of composing hundreds (he still has not made one in professional cricket) and working on bowling his left-arm spin with a red ball, he was warming a bench in India. Pope therefore had to play against Zimbabwe, and booked his place to start this series against India, for want of any competition. I think the time to switch to Bethell is now, even though he has had just one red-ball match for Warwickshire this season, and that at No 5. When England lose an early wicket, better to have Bethell's composure and defence, for all his inexperience, than Pope's impulsiveness and urge to lay bat on ball. Pope is England's most inconsistent No 3; give Bethell 102 Test innings and he is surely not going to be dismissed 36 times within his first 20 balls.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
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Raw pace is great, but England can't kick on without a balanced attack, writes NASSER HUSSAIN
There has been an obsession with the ball going soft this series, but India gave England a lesson on Sunday in the value of fielding a balanced attack. The leather ball has gone soft throughout the history of the game, and out of shape, it's just doing it quicker because Dukes have a serious problem with their production right now. When it does, the onus is on teams to find different roles for bowlers and adopt different styles of bowling - Pakistan defined reverse swing, spin bowlers adapted their games. I get cross when I see teams acting like there's only one way of getting a wicket and India looked to alternative skills on the fourth day to great success. When you saw Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj making the new ball talk off the cracks, and England's players jumping all over the place, you'd have been a brave man to bet on off-spinner Washington Sundar walking off with four for 22. But it is a very dry pitch, and when your two premier fast bowlers are tired, others have to step up. If it's not spinning, can you defeat the batters in the air, with drift? As Sundar did. He beat players on the outside edge, not the inside. Express pace is great, but England need to work on other ways of getting wickets in games England need to grow their ways of getting wickets, because in Australia, there will be periods when the Kookaburra ball goes soft, and although they want the excess pace of Mark Wood and Jofra Archer for that reason, you need spinners deceiving opponents as Shoaib Bashir did KL Rahul in the first innings here. Batting was tough on Sunday, reminding me of the old Lord's pitch featuring a ridge that made the ball fly through. India have been better than England with the new ball, and this phase of matches have been something of a double-edged sword because their top-order batters have played better throughout than England's too. The two England players who are vulnerable are obviously Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope. With the Ashes ahead, the selectors have stuck with them, and it looks like they're going to continue sticking with them, but this series so far has been a microcosm of why they average 30.89 and 35.22 respectively in Test cricket. I am not sure why Crawley was batting like he did in the first innings - charging down the pitch, standing outside off, standing way outside his crease, then going back into it. He doesn't seem to trust his defensive technique, yet the one time he's played well in this series - the half century in the second innings at Headingley - he did just that. It wasn't doing that much in the first innings here, that he had to be any different. You can't be whooshing outside off-stump as an opening batter against quality fast bowlers. This is a classic pitch for gully catches and yesterday's dismissal made it four times this series that he's been caught in that area. On Sunday, there were two fielders posted at gully, making it an even more dangerous shot. The percentages were not in the batsman's favour. It's coming to the stage where he's got to ask him himself: Am I OK batting like this? Three years ago, Brendon McCullum said that Crawley's game is suited to inconsistency. I'm afraid at the moment it's very consistent. There are lots of loose dismissals. He may well go to Old Trafford and bash a hundred on a good, fast, bouncy pitch as he did in the 2023 Ashes. That's why they want him to go to Australia next winter - he plays the ball above his waist well. But does he want to end his career with statistics like he has now? Similarly, Pope needs to find a way to keep scoring through a series. Remember, in India last year, he followed that 196 in the first Test with 118 runs across the next four matches. This time, he hit 106 in Leeds, but has 80 in five innings since.
Rhyl Journal
2 hours ago
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Lions have set sights on whitewashing Wallabies
The Lions enter the first Test bolstered by an eight-try demolition of an AUNZ Invitational XV, with Andy Farrell scheduled to name his team for the Brisbane opener on Thursday. Farrell's tourists are strong favourites to win the series and Pollock, who is competing for a place on the bench at Suncorp Stadium, insisted they were aiming for greatness. Building! 📈#Lions2025 — British & Irish Lions (@lionsofficial) July 12, 2025 'We want to come here and be the best Lions team ever. We've been talking about that loads and 3-0 is definitely on the table,' Pollock said. 'Whether you're playing or not playing in the Tests, we're all just trying to strive to be the best team we can and get that 3-0 win. If that's playing or not playing, then I'll adjust and be the best team-mate I can be.' Pollock – at 20-years-old, the youngest player in the squad – has been rooming with a veteran of four Lions expeditions in Owen Farrell, who made his first appearance of the tour off the bench against AUNZ. The England back row was just eight when Farrell's odyssey with the elite of British and Irish rugby began in Australia 12 years ago and he has been mining the veteran playmaker for advice. 'It was good to get chatting to him, learning from him. He's an amazing player and an amazing person as well,' Pollock said. 'We've had a few conversations. He's got kids, so we talk about his kids, but I'm sitting there going 'I'm still 20'! 'He's been great and I'm learning so much from him. He's so experienced in this game and in this kind of environment. 'It's still quite cool but at the same time, in this environment, we're all striving for the same thing. 'We want to come here and dominate as a team and he's been amazing since he's come in. He's been on top of everything. 'To be able to bring him off the bench and have his experience and his words has been amazing. You can definitely see what he brings on the pitch.' The Lions have come through a bruising schedule of four matches in 11 days and while they remain unbeaten since arriving in Australia, the injury count is growing with Tomos Williams and Elliot Daly forced home, Garry Ringrose and Luke Cowan-Dickie ruled out of the first Test and Blair Kinghorn a major doubt for the opener. Now the schedule settles down to whole weeks spent in the Test host cities Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, enabling the squad to train properly for the first time in a fortnight. All eyes on Brisbane! 👀🦁#Lions2025 — British & Irish Lions (@lionsofficial) July 13, 2025 'You have to be mentally strong as well as physically strong. Your body is the reason you get picked and you have to stay fit,' said Pollock, who withdrew from the side that faced the New South Wales Waratahs because of a calf injury. 'With these short turnarounds, you learn a lot about what you can do and what you can't do in terms of gym, running and extras and making sure that on the pitch you're 100 per cent where you want to be. 'You're just trying to get as fit as you can for these games. With the short turnaround, it's just always trying to be available for the coaches and saying 'I'm fit, I'm fit'. It's something different and I've loved the experience.'
