Jacob Graham Bethell (born 23 October 2003) is a Barbadian born

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who plays for the England under 19s cricket team. Bethell was born in

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

and moved to

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

, England, when he was 12. He made his

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...

debut on 20 June 2021, for

in the

2021 T20 Blast The 2021 Vitality Blast was the 2021 season of the T20 Blast, a professional Twenty20 cricket league played in England and Wales. It was the fourth season in which the domestic T20 competition, run by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), t ...

Early life and career

Bethell was born and raised in

. He attended Harrison College, whose alumni include

Sir Clyde Walcott Sir Clyde Leopold Walcott Knight or Dame of St. Andrew (Barbados), KA, Gold Crown of Merit, GCM, OBE (17 January 1926 – 26 August 2006) was a West Indies cricket team, West Indian cricketer. Walcott was a member of the "three W's", the other ...

, and was awarded player of the tournament in the West Indies Under-15 competition in 2017. Such performances earned him a scholarship at

Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. Up ...

, where he was coached by their director of cricket and former Warwickshire captain Mike Powell. He played cricket with Warwickshire from a young age, and Bethell signed a three-year professional contract with Warwickshire in January 2021. Former Warwickshire captain and England cricketer

Ian Bell Ian Ronald Bell (born 11 April 1982) is an English former cricketer who played international cricket in all formats for the England cricket team and county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. A right-handed higher/middle order batsm ...

described Bethell as "the best 17-year old" he had ever seen. He made his

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

debut on 22 July 2021, for Warwickshire in the

2021 Royal London One-Day Cup The 2021 Royal London One-Day Cup tournament was a limited overs cricket competition that formed part of the 2021 English cricket season in England and Wales. Matches were contested over 50 overs per side, having List A cricket status, with all ...

. In September 2021, Bethell was named as the joint-captain of the

England under-19 cricket team The England Under-19 cricket team have been playing official Under-19 Test matches since 1974. Prior to 1991/92 they were known as England Young Cricketers. Former captains include Mike Atherton, Michael Vaughan, Alastair Cook and Andrew Flin ...

for their series against the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

. He made his first-class debut on 12 September 2021, for Warwickshire in the

2021 County Championship The 2021 County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) was the 121st cricket County Championship season in England and Wales. For the first phase of the tournament, the teams were split into ...

. In December 2021, he was named as the vice-captain of England's team for the

2022 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup The 2022 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup was an international limited-overs cricket tournament that was held in the West Indies in January and February 2022 with sixteen teams taking part. It was the fourteenth edition of the Under-19 Cricket Worl ...

in the West Indies. In April 2022, he was bought by the

Welsh Fire Welsh Fire ( cy, Tân Cymreig) are a franchise 100-ball cricket side based in the city of Cardiff. The team represents the Historic counties of England, historic counties of Glamorgan, Gloucestershire and Somerset in the newly founded competiti ...

for the 2022 season of The Hundred.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bethell, Jacob 2003 births Living people Barbadian cricketers Warwickshire cricketers Gloucestershire cricketers People educated at Harrison College (Barbados) People educated at Rugby School Welsh Fire cricketers