Posted by We don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from players’ debuts – but we report on them anyway.
Ben Stokes lauded Jacob Bethell’s ‘swagger’ after his Test debut. It’s a characteristic that can mark you out as something of a tool in everyday life – but Test cricket is not everyday life. While confidence alone won’t carry you far, its absence can undermine even the most talented.
This current England side recognise that even delusional conviction is preferable to uncertainty. Clear-mindedness is the goal. They don’t much care how any given player maintains that.
“Pretty much every time I’ve played against better people, I’ve played better,” Bethell told the press after making an unbeaten 50 in his second Test innings. “The step up to the Hundred: played better. Straight into internationals: played better. I didn’t really have a doubt in my mind that coming into Test cricket that I’d have done well.”
If that reads a bit like he set the game up with an unbeaten double hundred in the first innings rather than merely having enjoyed himself a bit in a facile chase of 104, then his words do at least suggest a man with some sort of bulwark against self doubt. Bethell won’t always have made a fifty, but it doesn’t seem like a run of failures would derail him.
At the same time, it is of course quite often the insecure who talk themselves up most, the brashness of their confidence directly proportional to the fragility within. This isn’t the sense we get here – but who knows?
In terms of the actual nuts and bolts of batting go, the only thing we’ve really gleaned is that Bethell has a pull shot at his disposal and he’s not afraid to use it.
His first boundary in the second innings was inside-edged past the stumps. All of the rest of them looked like this:
Yes, they were all that blurry.
Some were off the front foot, some were off the back; some went in the air, others went flat; some went into the leg-side, others went straight. But all, basically, that shot above.
Maybe New Zealand won’t bowl so short to him next time. Almost certainly they won’t continue dropping eight chances an innings. England and Bethell have a lot of cricket still to play.
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You cannot sport THAT haircut and be plagued with self-doubt. Simply not possible.
England’s zinc oxide style factor surely increasing exponentially these days
As predicted by Tim in another post thingy, New Zealand have reverted back to form. 8 drops is almost an innings defeat in itself (y’know 8 wickets and such), and it was indeed almost an innings defeat (104 runs to win is but a jot). Hopefully, New Zealand can wake up and give us closer matches come the rest of the series.
Bethell should fit in well in New Zealand considering he’s part Merino/Corriedale/Polwarth/Dorset Horn, mixed with a little bit of human. He’ll need to be kept penned for he’ll be prone to wander off into the Canterbury Plains to join his brethren.
Anyway, interesting stuff in the West Indies, collapses and all, and good on Windies Cricket to show the test matches live on Ytube.
I like the idea of Bethell being part merino. Perhaps they could knit the team’s jumpers from his wool. Jacob’s is a breed isn’t it, the Warwickshire Bethell could also be one.
Following on from my prediction success (ta), I’m going to predict that for the next Test, England will make an even bolder selection than a part-sheep hybrid, and pick the newly renovated Notre Dame cathedral. Yes, it’s an inanimate object, and French. But look at that fantastic high ceiling.
I’ll get my coat.
In an attempt to stave off despondency, or as a result of despondency, I was going to post links to the worst haircuts in cricket, but by cruising the ‘net for said haircuts I inadvertently made myself feel unwell, so I shall not thrust such ikkyness onto the gentle readers of this beloved blog thingy.
Suffice to say that the Warwickshire Bethell, while curious in its appearance, almost pales into normality (it doesn’t) in comparison with the weird, brain softening, cancer inducing weirdness that’s out there (or was). The late Phil Drabble would feel at ease with the Warwickshire Bethell.
Phil Drabble would have been great on TMS, an Arlottian voice almost. “Now England will be pleased with their run(s) so far, but can they finish the job and get the kiwis in the pen?”