Jacob Bethell has become pivotal for England overnight and despite travelling to New Zealand as the spare batter, Bazball's latest bolter can also excel in Test cricket
- Jacob Bethell has become a pivotal member of the England team overnight
- He excelled again in the fourth T20 after crashing a career-best unbeaten 62
- Bethell, the latest Bazball bolter, travels to New Zealand as the spare batter
It is not only the bleach blonde beach haircut that has made Jacob Bethell stand out during his first three months as an England cricketer.
Like two other prodigious talents of the 21st century in Jimmy Anderson and Kevin Pietersen, with their outlandish Mohawk and Skunk 'dos, here is someone unafraid to indulge in self-expression.
Like that stellar duo, he has become a pivotal member of the England team overnight through sheer force of personality. As his team-mate Phil Salt said after the first of his two half-centuries in the 3-1 Twenty20 series win over West Indies: 'He's a 21-year-old lad, but if you didn't know his age, you'd think he'd played 100 games.'
A sign of his status was provided last Saturday when England resisted the temptation of sending in the in-form Liam Livingstone to make the most of a jet-heeled start that had taken them to 102 for two in the 10th over, keeping Bethell at no 4 and maintaining a left, right-hand combination.
Typically, he excelled, crashing a career-best unbeaten 62 and finishing with a series strike rate of 173.97 - the best of the six players to score 100 runs over the five matches.
Bethell is a chameleon cricketer, adapting to new environments and challenges seamlessly, and making the kind of impact that suggests contrary to statistical evidence he will be successful in Test cricket too.
Jacob Bethell has become a pivotal member of the England team overnight
A chameleon cricketer, Bethell was selected for the tour of New Zealand as the spare batter
He has the skill and ambition to make life uncomfortable for the current Test incumbents
As first revealed by Mail Sport, he became the latest Bazball bolter - a player with a first-class average of 25 and without a professional hundred - when he was selected for the tour of New Zealand starting later this week.
Pietersen had 21 hundreds when he made his Test debut in the 2005 Ashes, but the selectors trade in different currency now, no longer relying on traditional apprenticeships on the county circuit.
'Well, all the attributes are there, right? If you have markers to be able to go, right, you need to do this, this and this, he'd be knocking on the door for that. And obviously he's now next in line on this next trip. There's no reason why he can't break through and succeed, because he's flourished in both formats that we've seen in the recent period of time,' was the view of Marcus Trescothick, England's acting head coach on this tour.
'So if he was to get an opportunity over there, it would be exciting to see him go in there and see what he can do, because you could almost see him breaking through as being the next youngster after Harry Brook, the really exciting one coming through.'
Like Brook, he has overcome technical challenges with his batting. In the early stages of 2024, his head was falling to the off side, with the result that he was playing at wide balls he didn't have to and missing straight ones.
At his best, as he has been here in the Caribbean, he is still at the crease. An instinct player with Brian Lara-like hands that whip through deliveries, piercing gaps or clearing the ropes with precision. He is on a one-man crusade to make the late cut fashionable again.
Already a fielder to match anyone in the country at backward point and a developing left-arm spinner, Bethell's ability to turn his hand to anything adds to his appeal.
In the long term, he views himself as a top-order batter, having spent his schoolboy years as an opener - the position from which he crashed a 42-ball 88 for England Under-19 at the 2022 World Cup.
He travels to New Zealand very much as the spare batter, but one with the skill and ambition to make life uncomfortable for current Test incumbents Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope in the not too distant future.
