Jacob Bethell is ready for England to \u201cchuck me in the deep end\u201d as he prepares to lead the side for the first time against Ireland on Wednesday, making him the country\u2019s youngest men\u2019s captain.<\/p>\n
With Harry Brook rested for this quickfire three-match Twenty20 series in Malahide, just north of Dublin, the 21-year-old steps in to continue his brisk rise in international cricket.<\/p>\n
Bethell made his England debut last September<\/a> and impressed in his first Test series against New Zealand at the end of the year. Yet to seal a regular place in the red-ball XI, he has become an automatic pick in Brendon McCullum\u2019s white-ball teams.<\/p>\n \u201cBaz gave me a ring and said I was going to be skipper,\u201d said Bethell. \u201cNot a whole lot has been said of why I\u2019ve been chosen for the role. I don\u2019t know the exact thinking of those who are in charge. I guess it\u2019s maybe just a bit of trust, and showing a bit of faith. It will be nice to see how I go under pressure, and I\u2019m sure that the guys that have made the decision would like to see that as well.<\/p>\n \u201cI like when things come at a fast pace, it tends to get me up and about. So I like those situations, doesn\u2019t mean that they always work. But hopefully this one\u00a0does.\u201d<\/p>\n Even with plenty of experienced names in the squad to face Ireland, Bethell\u2019s ascension is in line with the management\u2019s wilder impulses when it comes to selection. He will have to fall back on his previous experience of leading England Under-19s.<\/p>\n Quick GuideIreland v England possible teamsShow<\/p>\n Ireland\u00a0Paul Stirling (capt), Ross Adair, Lorcan Tucker (wkt), Harry Tector, Curtis Campher, Ben Calitz, George Dockrell, Graham Hume, Barry McCarthy, Matthew Humphreys, Craig Young<\/p>\n England\u00a0Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (wkt), Jordan Cox, Jacob Bethell (capt), Sam Curran, Tom Banton, Will Jacks, Liam Dawson, Adil Rashid, Luke Wood, Sonny Baker<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n \u201cA very young one,\u201d replied a smiling Bethell when asked what type of captain he is. \u201cThe main thing I\u2019ve looked up to in captains I\u2019ve had previously is how they manage people. Not every tactical decision you make is going to work, but it\u2019s managing the boys well so they feel you\u2019re backing them. I\u2019ve got no preconceived ideas of how I\u2019m going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Bethell has found form with the bat since he was announced as captain last month, having hit his first professional century in the third ODI against South Africa<\/a> less than a fortnight ago. \u201cI didn\u2019t play for a while and maybe lost a little bit of rhythm, but felt that rhythm come back about midway through the Hundred so it\u2019s great to be back feeling good.\u201d He did not get dragged into any detailed Ashes talk: \u201cMy head\u2019s firmly screwed on to this series.\u201d<\/p>\n Harry Tector and Paul Stirling \u201care the two main threats with the bat\u201d for Ireland, said Bethell. The hosts enter underprepared having not played since June<\/a> \u2013 a completely different story to England \u2013 and will be without the whippy left-arm pace of Josh Little, on the mend from a rib injury. Yet the only completed T20 meeting between these two sides brought an Irish victory in Melbourne<\/a> at the World Cup three years ago, a reminder that it may not be all smooth for Bethell over the coming days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Bethell is ready for England to \u201cchuck me in the deep end\u201d as he prepares to lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-142441","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\/142441","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=142441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}