Remember a couple of years ago when Ollie Pope was picked to bat at number three for England even though he’d never batted higher than four in first-class cricket? Well it’s gone so well he’s earned a promotion to number six and also won back the wicketkeeping gloves. This has created an opening in the entry level slot. Enter Jacob Bethell and his zero hundreds in professional cricket.
Who writes your scripts, Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes? We only ask because they’re getting a bit hackneyed.
- Travelling to New Zealand without a spare wicketkeeper and having to ask Ollie Pope to keep wicket? That sounds a bit familiar.
- Asking someone who’s never batted higher than four to bat at number three? Hmm, likewise.
- Picking a young lad with a nondescript-to-poor first-class record because you think he’s got the qualities to perform in Test cricket? Oh, come on. You’ve given us this once, twice, three times before. To be honest it’s probably more times than that. We’ve lost count.
This isn’t Police Academy, you know. How about coming up with some new plot points?
With regards to Pope, there’s not much point retreading old ground when you could just read what we wrote last time – although he does have a stumping to his name now, so we suppose his wicketkeeping credentials have come on significantly since then.
As for Bethell, it’s hard to know what to think. He’s scored 738 first-class runs at an average of 25.44 and other than T20 internationals, where he’s been not out in half his innings, his averages in the other formats are much the same.
We keep seeing comments about how talented Bethell is (a ‘generational talent’ apparently) and we think, how do you know? Don’t you need a meaningful volume of raw data before you start drawing conclusions like that? Graham Gooch once scored 753 runs in a three-Test series. Bethell’s entire first-class run-scoring career doesn’t extend that far yet.
It can work, of course. Some players are just better – or at the very least right on the cusp of being so. South Africa made Graeme Smith captain when he was 22 and for a long time the best route to becoming a Pakistan Test bowler was to make your case as a net bowler.
At the same time, consistency isn’t a quality that wows coaches, simply because it is so hard to observe. The sweetly-timed cover drive catches the eye, whereas unless it’s truly horrendous, false shot percentage will not (although presumably they’ve got the data). This can sometimes mean that batters who ‘look good’ are overpromoted, whereas the shonky-looking need to be that much more effective to break into a Test team – and may therefore arrive offering more substance.
All of this is fun intrigue when a Test match gets underway though. Good luck, Jacob. Maybe you too will eventually earn yourself a number six batting spot and the wicketkeeping gloves.
NZ v ENG SPECIAL OFFER
Buy King Cricket a pint and get…
(a) Two hastily-generated AI images
(b) A happier writer
‘Look at his haircut, that’s the sort of self-confidence in the face of contradictory conventional wisdom about the realms of acceptability that Bazball is all about, get him on the plane’
…”the shonky-looking need to be that much more effective to break into a… team”.
I knew there had to be a reason. If only I had LOOKED as though I could bat…
…I could have been a contender…
I met an old team mate in the street a few weeks ago. He introduced me to his friend as having had a great cover drive (quite decent, though I say it as shouldn’t). When I protested at such flattery, he said that at least it would have made a great highlights reel. That’s what they are doing, picking the best highlights reel. May work.
What an intro!
… “picking the best highlights reel” …
I think they might be picking the best “High Barnet” (hair) reel. Still might work of course.
It does feel like Bazball has finally jumped the shark but given the volatility of recent Test results we’ll probably win this series 3-0.
Love the mock Black Friday offer, KC. I’m seeing so many genuine-yet-daft ads along those lines, my first thought was, “oh no, surely KC has not succumbed to this nonsense”. Great spoof.
It’s quite hard to know when to start running a satirical Black Friday offer. Wednesday feels quite late because most of the non-satirical offers have been running for at least a few days by then.