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Until his ice-cool 40 helped England dodge an Ashes whitewash in front of 90,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday, the most clippable aspect of Jacob Bethell’s tour was probably his performance of YMCA on a dancefloor in Noosa during the team’s much-discussed break.
It is a bit poor when sports people have their down time filmed by members of the public and posted online. But at least Bethell, born 25 years after the Village People’s seminal hit was first released, had the wherewithal to get the tricky “C” the right way round. Rob Key’s Gareth Keenan-like investigation into Noosa can rule out inebriation here.
Technique is Bethell’s thing, the reason why this particular 22 year old has always played above his age. Coaches and selectors purr about the left-hander’s balance and poise, his ability to pick up length early and the weight transfer that allows him to drive and clip with timing or rock back to pull and cut with power. Put simply, he looks the part.
Despite being feted by Sir Garfield Sobers and Brian Lara when growing up in the Caribbean, Bethell is still to make a first-class century. For all the promise of his first Test outing in New Zealand 12 months ago – including a near-miss 96 in Wellington – his return at No 3 on Boxing Day could have been a daunting one.
“I was pretty nervous,” said Bethell, who fell for one in the first innings. “Not so much with the number of people, just the occasion. I’ve played in India where it feels like there’s 160,000 watching.”
This refers to his time in the Indian Premier League this year and a seven-week experience when he played a couple of games for the eventual champions, Royal Challengers Bangalore. Bethell is not the first to mention how the tournament can fortify players for big crowds.
There is a danger of overplaying an innings of 40 from 46 balls in a run chase. But on such a challenging pitch as the one served up at the MCG – and given he walked out at No 4 with 115 runs required after Brydon Carse’s brief attempt to be a pinch-hitter – it was worth more.
Again it was as much about the how as the how many, be it the way Bethell sauntered down to his fourth ball from Scott Boland and punched a crisp on-drive to the rope or straight after tea when a ramped two then allowed the overcompensation to met with a silky drive through extra cover.
There was a downside to that IPL spell. Signed before his Test debut, and with England unable to withdraw players due to their deference to the BCCI, Bethell missed the one-off Test against Zimbabwe in May. Ollie Pope dipped his bread with 171 runs, kept his spot for the series against India, only for his scores to diminish after a century in the first Test.
Instead of England learning more about Bethell, and Bethell learning more generally, he then had a slightly wasted summer that included a single red-ball outing for Warwickshire, a one-off, form-devoid chance in the final Test at the Oval and was chiefly about white-ball cricket. A maiden senior century in an ODI against South Africa at least salvaged something.
In some ways the debate over Pope or Bethell did neither any favours. But given England’s delight with Bethell in New Zealand after signing off from the tour with a gutsy 76, a team that preaches taking the positive option slightly baulked. Key, the team director, admitted the change made in Melbourne should probably have come sooner.
There is no animosity between the two players, Pope notably giving Bethell throwdowns before the start of play on Boxing Day and underlining why his team-first attitude made it such a tricky call – for all his contrastingly fidgety starts, Pope has nine Test centuries.
Either way, Bethell is rightly taking nothing for granted. “I would like to just nail down any role in the team,” he said. “If you’re in the XI and contributing to winning I’m pretty happy with that.
“I like No 3. You come in when the ball is new and in some scenarios the ball’s going all over the shop. But in other scenarios it presents opportunities to score when bowlers are trying to take wickets and the field is attacking there’s loads of gaps. It’s a double-edged sword, but I’m enjoying it.
After a year of mixed signals, the Sydney Test that starts on 4 January is another chance to further an education taking place at the highest level and perhaps make No 3 a fun place to stay.
