The 21-year old Jacob Bethell is set to become England’s youngest men’s captain when he leads the team in the three Twenty20s in Ireland next month. Former England captain Michael Atherton however warns that Bethell needs to be guided carefully to improve his batting and that the captaincy can wait for now.
“The captaincy is a red herring, though. Ben Stokes and Harry Brook are going nowhere and if this experience is part of long-term planning, then fair enough — although they have to be careful that Bethell doesn’t start to wonder what he has done to deserve the keys to the entire kingdom,” Atherton wrote in his column in The Times. “The bigger issue is his lack of cricket. The speed of the promotion means that Bethell, uniquely among recent England batsmen, has missed a stage of his development … The difference for Bethell this year is that he has been carrying the drinks in Tests, so his opportunities in the middle have been extremely limited.”
Atherton then writes that Bethell has just faced 441 balls this year across games in all formats. “For a young player making his way that is insufficient; that balance of short-form cricket versus first-class or 50-over cricket is out of kilter. The management of a young player is far more challenging than in years gone by because of the commercial opportunities available to them. Playing in the Indian Premier League is more beneficial than playing early-season county cricket, but sitting on the bench, as Bethell did? That is a harder argument to make. Players are allowed to stay in the IPL for the duration, unless they decide, as Brook did, to relinquish the opportunity, but this decision should not be left to the player alone.”
Bethell is set to beat the existing record for youngest England captain held by Monty Bowden who was 23 when he led in a Test against South Africa in Cape Town in 1888-89. “Jacob Bethell has impressed with his leadership qualities ever since he has been with the England squads,” said the national selector, Luke Wright. “The series against Ireland will provide him with the opportunity to further develop those skills on the international stage.” Bethell got the opportunity against Ireland as Harry Brook plans to take a break after the one-day and T20 series against South Africa.
Atherton put it in perspective when he wrote, “It is a startling further rise for Bethell, whose advancement far outstrips his achievements thus far. It is hard to think of another England cricketer promoted to a top job so rapidly: yet to make a professional hundred, he is central to England’s thinking in all three formats as well as enjoying various franchise gigs. Now the captaincy.”
