Jacob Bethell says he will “learn on the job” as he prepares to become the youngest England skipper for a men’s international match.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old will lead an under-strength England side in the first of three T20 internationals against Ireland at Malahide on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Regular white-ball captain Harry Brook and England’s other all-format players have been rested for the matches.<\/p>\n
His previous experience as captain has been with England Under-19s and Warwickshire’s second XI. He has never captained at full senior level.<\/p>\n
“I will be very chilled out, try to let everyone relax and let the talent take over,” an unfazed Bethell told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“Obviously it’s only a short-term job standing in for Harry Brook so I’ll look to reiterate the messages he’s trying to take forward with this time.<\/p>\n
“To lead the side is going to be really special. I can learn on the job without too many preconceived ideas.”<\/p>\n
Bethell will eclipse a record held since 1889, when Monty Bowden captained England aged 23 years and 144 days old in a Test against South Africa.<\/p>\n
The young all-rounder acknowledged it was “not on his radar” to break the record but it was a “cool stat to have”.<\/p>\n
“It [captaincy] is something new to me but I prefer it that way. The boys have been very welcoming and offering advice,” he added.<\/p>\n
“It is an incredible opportunity and something I will look back on in the future.”<\/p>\n
While Bethell will become England’s youngest captain in an international, Alfred ‘Bunny’ Lucas remains their youngest skipper in any match. <\/p>\n
He led what Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack called an “unrepresentative” England side in a three-day match against Gloucestershire aged just 20 in 1877.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Bethell says he will “learn on the job” as he prepares to become the youngest England skipper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-141599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}