England’s squad for their tour of New Zealand is the clearest sign yet that the selectors are seeking to bypass the County Championship when selecting Test cricketers.
Following the selections of spinners Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir on the back of little county form, and Josh Hull because he was essentially a unicorn – a six foot eight left-arm seamer – comes Jacob Bethell, who has never made a century in any format professionally but is just one injury away from a Test cap, possibly even opening the batting.
Bethell will cover the top seven, with Jordan Cox a like-for-like replacement for Jamie Smith, who is on paternity leave, in that he is an excellent attacking batsman who has kept in only six first-class matches. If Cox is injured, Ollie Pope will keep, as he did on the tour of New Zealand in 2019 and twice in Pakistan in 2022 without disgracing himself.
Bethell is a 21-year-old with no first-class record to speak of. But he does have abundant potential and ambitions at the top of the order. Perhaps, really, the only surprise is that England did not go for someone even younger, like his Warwickshire team-mate Hamza Shaikh (18) or the Durham opener Ben McKinney (20). Both are with the Lions in South Africa next month.
England now appear to believe that county cricket cannot be trusted to produce Test batsmen, so they extract them from the system before an army of medium-pacers mangle their techniques beyond recognition. Perhaps they do not even trust counties themselves; there was some grumbling this year about Shaikh’s lack of opportunities in Warwickshire’s first-team, and that Bethell was batting so low in the order. Counties are looking to win the game in front of them, which may be at odds with England’s objectives. But to be fair to England, Warwickshire did only win one game all season and were lucky to avoid relegation.
Nevertheless, there will be – indeed there are – county players up and down the country shaking their heads at Bethell’s selection. There are those in the middle of their careers like Sam Hain or Josh Bohannon, those who are a bit older and who have been tried before like Keaton Jennings or James Vince, and those who can bat and keep like James Rew or Ollie Robinson. To one extent or another, they all have a body of county work behind them, but for now at least that is not enough (Rew and Robinson’s time may well come, and expect them both to tour Australia with the Lions in January). A selection policy that does not value county records may make some quicker to look towards the franchise scene and white-ball specialist, especially with the Pakistan Super League joining the IPL as a lucrative spring-time earning opportunity.
The selectors have a lot of credit in the bank. Despite mixed results, they have regenerated the England team well this year, moving away from a group of thirty and even and forty-somethings to bring in Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson and more. In a year or two’s time, we may look back on Bethell’s call as a masterstroke because it exposed him to Test cricket. It is also important to remember that, all being well on the form and injury front, he will not play. The policy of backing players through form slumps and largely overlooking county cricket will jump the shark at some point, but it is unlikely to be with this pick.
There are two things the selectors would do well to remember, though. First is that that many of their best picks were underpinned by domestic form, even if they came with little tweaks. Ben Duckett had scored Championship runs for close to a decade, often at No 3, before he was recalled to open. Harry Brook simply demanded selection every time he batted for Yorkshire. Smith had been one of the best batsman in the Championship for years, even if he was not keeping. Matt Potts was raw, but was tearing it up for Durham when he got the call. Atkinson had done well for Surrey, even if the sample size was small.
The second is that this squad leaves them vulnerable in New Zealand. It has 16 players, including three spinners when surely only one will play, but does not have proven top-order cover or keeping cover that would not require a reshuffle of the batting order. The lesson of Dan Lawrence opening in the summer does not appear to have been learnt. That was a move that cost Lawrence his place as middle order cover, as well as England the opportunity to look at proper top-order cover ahead of a massive 2025.
The early part of this management group’s tenure was defined by stability; picking the best team, whatever their age, and not looking too far outside the box. As they have made the team their own, they are looking younger and younger, whatever the form book says.
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