Impressing Lara & golf with Sobers - England new boy Bethell
This article was originally published in September prior to Jacob Bethell's T20 and one-day international debuts for England. He impressed in that series and on a tour to the West Indies in November. He is due to make his Test debut against New Zealand on Wednesday (22:00 GMT).
Jacob Bethell will be glad England players do not have to share rooms.
At Warwickshire the 20-year-old is room-mates with another England new boy Dan Mousley. It is the biggest threat to their otherwise close friendship.
"Apparently I am a bad snorer," says Bethell.
"It was either I sort something out or I get moved out of the room.
"Now I tape my mouth shut every time I share a room."
Bethell and Mousley, 23, were two of five uncapped players in England's squad to play Australia in September as they build for the future.
Bethell was still in school during England's World Cup win in 2019, and was being driven from Warwickshire to Yorkshire to make his county second team debut as a 15-year-old on the Sunday Eoin Morgan lifted the trophy at Lord's.
Now he is tasked with replacing some of those World Cup winners.
"I didn't get to watch a whole lot of it," he recalls. "It has been weird.
"The first couple of training days I was like, jeez there are a lot of eyes on you - and a lot of eyes that have played a lot of cricket."
As the latest England cricketer born and raised in Barbados, Bethell's path to this point has been well told.
His grandfather, Arthur, was a first-class cricketer for Barbados while his father, Graham, also played for the island's talent-packed youth teams.
Bethell's talent was spotted as a youngster in the Caribbean and he moved to Rugby School aged 12 on a cricket scholarship.
The story goes that Brian Lara was among those impressed but the big break almost did not happen.
"It was an under-18s game and I was about 12," he says, still speaking with his Bajan twang.
"It was during an Easter camp and I wasn't supposed to be playing but would take my whites down in case someone didn't turn up.
"It just happened the person didn't rock up and I got asked to play. I got 50-odd and four-fer - a half decent game."
Bethell has also been able to call upon one of the all-time greats for help.
Sir Garfield Sobers, the legendary West Indies all-rounder, is a family friend who has offered advice at home and on the golf course - words of discouragement too.
"I have been lucky enough to play a couple of rounds with him," adds Bethell.
"He tries to get in your head, tries to chatter.
"His swing is nice, it's a bit slower now. Mine is slightly quicker but I've got about 60 years on him.
"He still refuses to play off the white tees. He's always back on the blues where I play off."
Having been billed as a future "superstar" by coach Marcus Trescothick, Bethell made his debut in England's defeat by Australia in the first T20 in Southampton.
The Bethell family brought forward a visit from the Caribbean to be there as a decent enough effort with his left-arm spin - 0-28 from three overs - was followed by a more difficult six-ball two with the bat.
There was a match-winning 44 in the next game in Cardiff, before three half-centuries on the recent white-ball tour of the West Indies.
He was making breakfast at home when he got the call from Trescothick to say he had been picked in August. It was not until an exclamation-mark filled message came through later that evening from Mousley, confirming he had also been picked, that the day truly peaked.
"We are very close," says Bethell, who has been on the books at Warwickshire since under-14 level.
"It is only capped players that get single rooms so me and Dan room together for any away fixture with Warwickshire."
Bethell and Mousley are both aggressive middle-order batters who also bowl spin, if you use the term loosely to describe Mousley's darts.
In many ways Bethell, like Mousley, is the typical, modern-day cricketer. For starters there's the bold, dyed-blonde hair and a Great Dane named Stormzy, but also the array of attacking shots.
He first emerged with an innings of 88 off just 42 deliveries in the quarter-final of the 2022 Under-19 World Cup, setting up a victory in a run to the final by an England squad that also included Rehan Ahmed.
But the 20-year-old also manages to nod towards the more traditional.
Growing up he was inspired by, and attempted to copy, the elegance of Joe Root, while before matches he likes to make notes on the bowlers he could face - a method famously used by England great Geoffrey Boycott, among others.
"I will have a little look at the bowlers. I won't study them, but have a watch," he reveals.
"I then write down a few keys that I could take into the game. Writing stuff down feels like it etches it in my mind."
And Bethell is absolute when it comes to the future. Opportunities in franchise cricket can come quickly after an international debut, but he wants to build on a first year as a red-ball regular for Warwickshire in which 466 runs have come in 11 matches.
"I enjoy playing cricket, so the more cricket there is the better, but I don't see it as a feasible option to stop playing red-ball cricket," he says.
"Then you probably won't have a county contract and are leaving yourself out to a lot of pressure to get franchise gigs, which is quite cut-throat.
"Test cricket is definitely the pinnacle and I see myself as someone who is able to adapt to all formats and situations."
Bethell is in the big boys' school now.
