Latest news with #Edgbaston
Washington Post
21 hours ago
- General
- Washington Post
England opt to bowl first against West Indies with chance to clinch ODI series
CARDIFF, Wales — England chose to bowl first against the West Indies with a chance to clinch their one-day international series at Sophia Gardens on Sunday. England named its team earlier and made an enforced change, bringing in seamer Matthew Potts for Jamie Smith, who broke a finger on Thursday as England won the first ODI by 238 runs at Edgbaston.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Jacob Bethell is 9/1 to top-score for England yet again on Sunday - as Brendon McCullum's side clash with the West Indies in an ODI in Cardiff
England were dominant in their opening One Day International against West Indies at Edgbaston on Thursday, with the hosts winning convincingly by 238 runs. They will look to build on that performance and sew up a series win at Cardiff's Sophia Gardens on Sunday, as the two teams meet in the second of three ODIs. Unsurprisingly, England are huge favourites to be victorious, with Brendon McCullum's side currently priced at 1/7. Conversely, West Indies are sizeable underdogs at 9/2 to upset the applecart and level the series at 1-1. In addition the head-to-head odds - let's take a look at the Runs market for Sunday's contest in Wales. Joe Root is the best-backed with Sky Bet to score the most runs for the hosts at 3/1 - while Ben Duckett is second in the market at 10/3. Both Root and Duckett performed well with the bat in the first ODI, with the pair notching up scores of 57 and 60 respectively. Meanwhile, if you're after an outsider in the market, Jacob Bethell is a 9/1 seventh-favourite according to Sky Bet. Bethell top-scored for the hosts on Thursday, with the batting all-rounder registering an impressive score of 82 off 53 balls. Sky Bet odds for England vs West Indies: England 1/7 West Indies 9/2 Sky Bet odds in England Most Runs market for England vs West Indies: Joe Root 3/1 Ben Duckett 10/3 Jos Buttler 9/2 Harry Brook 5/1 Jamie Smith 5/1 Tom Banton 11/2 Jacob Bethell 9/1
Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Telegraph
How England lured Jacob Bethell away from West Indies
'Jacob is a sponge, so he will have learnt a lot from Virat.' Michael Powell should know because he was Jacob Bethell's cricket coach at Rugby School. Bethell spent six years there, where Powell and his wife Michelle were guardians to the boy who arrived from Barbados aged 12, with a reference from Sir Garfield Sobers and Brian Lara in his back pocket. Now he is an England cricketer who has opened the batting in the Indian Premier League with Virat Kohli and marked his first international at his home ground, Edgbaston, on Thursday night with a man-of-the-match performance against West Indies, waving his bat to Powell when he reached 50. In the second ODI in Cardiff on Sunday he has a further opportunity to push for keeping his Test place for the India series. Powell, the former Warwickshire captain recently made a club life member, was sitting in the chairman's box beaming with pride on Thursday. Bethell has not forgotten his upbringing. He acknowledged afterwards that Powell was the reason why he was in the UK and joined Warwickshire's academy almost as soon as he arrived in this country. He handed over signed shirts for a couple of the pupils at Rugby after the game. Powell took him to Edgbaston as a wide-eyed 12-year-old and said one day he would play there for England. 'You know what, it felt funny,' he told Telegraph Sport. 'I played under-19s for England with Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan, and Jacob reminds me so much of them. They all use Gunn & Moore bats, and stood out from others their age. Then I see Tres at Edgbaston [working as England's batting coach] throwing balls to Jacob. It's just weird how the stars have aligned.' Powell took Bethell to the Edgbaston museum to see photos of Brian Lara scoring his 501 at the ground. Bethell stopped for a picture next to a framed one of his mentor. 'We had a laugh about that,' Powell says now. It used to be that every 10 years or so in English cricket a player would come along with a natural air of permanence at an early age, relishing the scrutiny and pressure of international cricket. The 18 county academies and cricket's pathway are now producing those players more regularly. Think of Joe Root in 2012, Ben Stokes a year later making a hundred in his second Test in Australia and Harry Brook. Bethell, 21, is the latest with cricket in his blood and a grounding in the game that was fine-tuned on the fields of Rugby. Powell would spend hours on the school grounds where the sport of rugby union was born, hitting balls in the air for the teenage Bethell to dive around and catch. 'You know what? He never, ever dropped a single one. He was a phenomenal fielder. Hand on heart, the first time I saw him swing a bat, I thought he'd play international cricket,' he said. Bethell arrived at Rugby with a burgeoning cricketing reputation. He joined the Franklyn Stephenson Academy in Barbados aged 11, and was coached by Lara at 12. His grandfather played for Barbados, his father Graham club cricket in Sheffield with Vaughan and the family had strong links and contacts in English cricket. In 2015, his academy side played Loretto, a touring school from Scotland and Bethell scored a 50. Watching was John Patterson, who worked with Bethell's dad years previously and whose sons were at Rugby, looked after by Powell. He tipped Powell off about Bethell and Rugby beat a number of other public schools offering scholarships because of those links. Rugby's close ties to Warwickshire helped, too. 'First time I saw him, he didn't have a bat or kit. I threw him some tennis balls and he just cut and pulled them to shreds,' Powell said. 'I later discovered a video of him taken in the back garden in Barbados, where there was a ball on a string hanging up and every morning from 6am he would be out there hitting it. When people say Tiger Woods was born with a golf club in his hands, it applies to Jacob in a cricket sense. But for us it was about supporting him, this young kid growing up a thousand miles away from his parents. It was about pastoral care as well as cricket.' Like Brook, who went to Sedburgh, Bethell benefitted from a full sports scholarship at a top public school. English cricket relies heavily on the public-school system, skewing the perception of the sport, although there are fears within the ECB that the government's VAT levy will affect the number of scholarships handed out to those like Brook and Bethell who would otherwise have been unable to afford the privilege. 'He would get frustrated because he did not have the strength to pierce the infield so I had to tell him to be patient,' says Powell. 'I remember saying, 'Right now you're getting 20 off 80 balls, but there were 17 dots today that you drove and the fielders cut them off. Soon they will pierce those gaps so there's an extra 68, so that's your 88 off 80 balls.' He was frustrated because the guy at the other end, who was older, was smoking it. I just said in 10 years' time, he will be playing club cricket. They will not be doing what you're doing.' What Bethell is doing is building on that talent. He had no problem finding the gaps against West Indies. After finding his feet with 20 off 26 balls, he exploded with 62 off his next 23, with eight fours and five sixes. He recently told the Professional Cricketers' Association magazine, Beyond The Boundaries, that he was spending his time in India facing Bhuvneshwar Kumar swinging the new ball round corners in the nets while training with Bangalore. 'Pretty good prep for red-ball cricket,' he said. 'My technique and the way I bat is very much suited to red-ball cricket. it is a case of becoming more or less expansive depending on the scenario I'm faced with.' He may have lost his Test No 3 spot to Ollie Pope for the time being, but perhaps the upside of staying in the IPL is his exposure to Indian conditions, and the benefit that will give England across formats over the long term. Just living in the goldfish bowl with Kohli can only help. 'I think he quite enjoys the overseas boys because we're just pretty chill around him,' says Bethell. 'He's definitely got that aura and it's pretty electrifying to walk out to bat with him. I don't want to give away everything I learnt, but obviously you go to India and the first thing you think of is spin. And just the way those batters go about thinking about playing spin. They're pretty clinical in how they pick length and the deliveries they try and hit for four and six. That was nice to have more of a power-game input into my game rather than a bit of touch around spin as well. So then just trying to mesh the two together would help a lot.' It proves Powell is right about his sponge-like tendencies. 'It is just very rewarding to see him realise his dream,' he added. 'But also go out there and grab it with both hands.'
Daily Mail
a day ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Jacob Bethell is the future for England cricket but here's why he should be kept waiting for Test call, writes NASSER HUSSAIN
England's new white-ball era under Harry Brook got off to an excellent start on Thursday. When I arrived at Edgbaston and looked at the team sheet, especially the batting line-up, my initial thought was, 'Crikey, how have this side lost seven in a row and slipped to No 8 in the world?' Everyone has been writing off our white-ball team. But I never viewed England as a side lacking in talent. They have just been underachieving and needed a reset, which you often get with a change of captain. I have seen some people comparing the situation to the Eoin Morgan reset in 2015, when they also started by scoring 400 at Edgbaston against New Zealand. I would be careful with that comparison because this West Indies side are ranked ninth in the world and really struggling. One good game doesn't change everything for England. But what Thursday did prove was that there is undeniable talent out there, it is just up to Brook and Brendon McCullum to get the best out of them, just like Ben Stokes and McCullum have done with the Test team. Whatever the format, this England regime have always selected very well. They are very good at talent-spotting and they have certainly spotted a talent in Jacob Bethell. As soon as Jos Buttler stood down, I said I would give it to Brook, Nasser Hussain writes I am told he is very organised — not just with the way he bats, but in everything he does. He is meticulous in his preparation. When I was England captain, I always looked for that in young players coming into the side. Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick were two who turned up and prepared for a game exactly how you'd want them to. When you add that characteristic to the raw talent that Bethell has, he is clearly going to have a long career in all formats for England. He is the future. For that reason, you might want to get him back into the Test team sooner rather than later. My view would be to keep him waiting. I would find it very difficult to leave someone out who has just got a big hundred in a Test match for someone who is yet to score a professional hundred. But if they went the other way and played Bethell, I would completely understand. As for Brook's captaincy, the early signs are positive. As soon as Jos Buttler stood down, I said I would give it to Brook because he is not someone who is easily fazed. He does not overthink or overcomplicate things in life, not a bad habit for a captain, especially when the pressure is on. I looked down from above at Edgbaston on Thursday and there were a lot of people trying to help Brook at times. At this stage, against this West Indies side, I would just leave him alone and let him show everyone who is in charge. I like the way he stands at mid-off, so he can be in constant communication with his bowler, as opposed to when Buttler kept wicket as captain and had a long way to go to talk to his. He also thought clearly about the ground dimensions at Edgbaston, which was something Morgan was very good at. Today in Cardiff, it is short straight but big square, so he will want to get his seamers to bowl it into the surface. I still think England need a left-arm seamer to give them more variety, whether that is Luke Wood or someone else, and they need to introduce a left-arm spinner, be it Tom Hartley or Liam Dawson, with next year's T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in mind. When picking their next squads, England need to keep an eye out for their future wrist spinner I'd also like to see some succession planning for Adil Rashid. When Buttler handed him his 150th ODI cap at Edgbaston, he told him in the huddle that he was probably the most irreplaceable player in the side. That is all well and good, but you do eventually have to replace him, whether that's because he is injured or you are just thinking about a few years down the line. When picking their next squads, they need to keep an eye out for their future wrist spinner. Another thing which is going to determine the success of this side is player availability. With two iconic Test series against India and Australia coming up, I will be intrigued to see how much white-ball cricket England's red-ball stars play this year. For people like me, the Ashes is the absolute priority, but England need to be successful in ICC events again. You can't rock up to next year's T20 World Cup and say, 'We had the Ashes so we didn't focus on this tournament enough'. That will no longer wash with fans. It is going to be fascinating to see how Rob Key, McCullum, Stokes and Brook strike that balance between the different formats.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Harris posts third fastest fifty as Bears and Blaze both win
Big-hitting Australian overseas signing Laura Harris gave an instant return on her Warwickshire Bears debut, smashing her way into the record books in a comfortable victory against six days after landing in the UK to take part in the T20 Blast campaign, and on her first start, Harris posted the joint-third fastest half century in women's T20 history as she raced to the milestone in 17 was a barnstorming performance bettered only by Marie Kelly who reached 50 in 15 balls for Warwickshire against Gloucestershire in 2022, and Tess Flintoff whose 16-ball 50 for Melbourne Stars against Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash came in the same 53 came in 17 balls with three sixes and eight fours to put her equal third with Lizelle Lee (Surrey Stars against Lancashire Thunder in 2019).Fellow Bear Davina Perrin contributed a 61-ball 87 as they posted 193-6 at Edgbaston, a target defended comfortably by captain Georgia Davis and her team as they won by 42 were off the mark with a win after sharing a tie with The Blaze in their opening Blast fixture on Friday the Nottinghamshire outfit also got their campaign up and running with a seven-wicket victory against Lancashire Thunder at Old Trafford in the day's other Blast Mack helped Thunder to 169-4 in their 20 overs with a 37-ball 59. But Blaze were always in control of the chase thanks to 53 in 43 balls from opener Georgia Elwiss and more runs from Kathryn Bryce, who followed up her opening day 60 with a 29-ball was secured with five balls to spare and saw the Blaze go second in the table behind Warwickshire Bears.
