Et in dystopia ego. In the midst of death we are in life. On a throbbing hot, deep blue afternoon in Sydney, as this ghost ship of an England Ashes tour creaked towards its final dock, the fourth day of the fifth Test produced an unexpected late plot twist. Something good happened.
Jacob Bethell batted for six hours from mid-morning to the end of the game, scoring a hundred rare beauties at the SCG. It was also an easy, clean beauty, all classical lines and symmetry, a series of layers and accelerations, of soothing rhythms, laced with moments of balletic power.
It seems a little absurd that Bethell’s first professional red ball hundred would appear on this stage. But this was just one of those moments in sports when a truly top talent revealed himself. And Bethell is so clearly a premium product, despite the efforts of the English regime to spoil its progress. It’s the Mercedes-Benz SL convertible. He’s a whole wheel of cave-aged yak milk super cheese. He is a third innings 142 not out at the SCG in the faded midday sun.
At times the SCG seemed to spin in on itself, allowing this spectacle to breathe in its own space. So many things were declared dead on this tour. Testing cricket. The Australian summer. The cult of Baz. Good at bat. Correct bowling. Correct spin bowling. The art of precise lawn mowing.
As the crowds continued to occupy the grounds, TV ratings have soared. And now we had this, a testament to the fundamental indivisibility of talent, the fact that this sport can still produce these shapes and colors, this sense of clarity.
It’s worth clarifying what a sublime first hundred for a hyper-talented 22-year-old actually means. Nature does not heal. Nothing was saved. The bruises from this tour are still real, English cricket’s elite management is still a shambles in itself.
But at the end of a series that was really just shouting unhappily at the sky, there was a sense that everyone here needed this, from the legendary Australian bowling legend at the urinal saying, oh yeah, he just looks really good, to the mid-Nineties machine jumping between the communications box and the cake table and muttering, “Yes, he’s got it,” to a packed crowd gurgling in the sun.
Above all, it was a feeling that English cricket could still produce a functioning opponent in this sporting competition. Welcome to Episode 5: A New Hope. The Post-Colonial Empire is still in charge of the galaxy. But a brave little RD droid might just bring the plans to a different kind of ending.
Even the format of Bethell’s innings felt epic. England went into action again trailing by 173 runs and lost Zack Crawley in the opener to Mitchell Starc, failing to play a shot. Maybe this was how it would end. Perhaps the English batters would all refuse to participate and raise their bats in submission, a kind of situationist event, a rejection of the spectacle.
At that moment, Bethell walked out, neat and urgent, sleeves rolled up, the kind of cricketer whose gear just seemed to suit him better, and started doing the right things. At first he might have made a point about what Ben Duckett was doing on the other side. While Duckett bobbed, cut, and played statement yahoos, Bethell cut and pushed, finding his timing, lines tight, and staying in his box like a ballroom dancer.
His timing through point is nothing short of sensational, both because of the clean lines, shapes and movements that you will now come to know, recognize and digest, a hunger that only Test cricket can truly satisfy.
At the age of 72 he was hit on the helmet by a good bouncer from Cameron Green. He leaves those balls by arching his back, Robin Smith style, an active, aggressive form of leave. This requires courage, but also great spatial insight. Even this felt good. The blow was a look. Bethell grinned and glided along.
He went to 43 with a dreamy backfoot strike. His 50 delivered a vicious square cut that obliterated the fielder on the boundary. 87 balls were needed. Even his chariot wheel was completely symmetrical, like a pair of Palladian columns. There was nothing hopeless here, no manufactured shots, just a perfectly controlled command of defense and aggression.
Bethell went to 96, his previous highest score with a mean, liberating pull to the square. For a while, Scott Boland teased him about that half-length, which wasn’t quite there yet, seaming away, saying, go on, throw all your hope, your work, your energy on this thing here.
Bethell stayed in his own space. It was one of those beautiful moments, cricket talking to himself, in a voice that you only hear if you have followed the entire conversation. He lingered for a while on 99. The hundred came from Beau Webster’s off-breaks, a loft over midwicket, wonderfully brutal at this moment.
This was a brilliant Test hundred, 103 off 162 balls against an elite attack on a threadbare pitch, and an innings that will now be endlessly diced and divided, its innards read, its meaning unresolved.
Bethell at the SCG was proof of life, and also of how this England Test team can survive and evolve. It will also be seen as a rejection of the Baz era, a kind of cultural waypoint. Check it out: real, non-stupid batting, at least on one side. But it wasn’t exactly a rejection.
No baggage, no fear: this was Bazball, essentially. And it’s all Bethell has really done here. Maybe this is the twist. Maybe there was no Bazball after all. Bruce Willis is already dead. The crossword book lies untouched on the table. And what Bethell’s genius tells us is that there are only two types of percussion. Good batting and bad batting. Play freely. Assess risk and reward. Be good at cricket.
The transcendent game states, the waffle, the cut corners, the reversal. This is just a product to be sold, a product that has its own very clear limitations. Bethell has survived this English regime, despite his best efforts to obfuscate his progress, to make him a ’cause celebre’ for bashing county cricket and all the rest. Which of these things do you want to rely on now?
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