{"id":361511,"date":"2026-01-09T20:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/361511\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T20:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:35:07","slug":"the-ashes-2025-26-jacob-bethells-front-reminds-me-of-kevin-pietersen-matt-prior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/361511\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes 2025-26: Jacob Bethell’s ‘front’ reminds me of Kevin Pietersen – Matt Prior"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacob Bethell’s character and “front” has similarities to England great Kevin Pietersen, according to former wicketkeeper Matt Prior. <\/p>\n

Bethell, 22, played in the final two Tests of the Ashes and made a maiden first-class century with a stunning 154 in the second innings of the final game in Sydney.<\/p>\n

England were 4-1 and trailed by 179 runs when Bethell walked to the crease and Prior was impressed by his approach. <\/p>\n

“He’s got a lot of front. He walks out and does it in his way, a little bit like when Kevin Pietersen walked around Perth like he owned the place,” Prior said on BBC’s Tailenders podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to have that as a top-level sportsperson, especially in Australia. <\/p>\n

“There is a fine line between self-belief and arrogance and taking it too far and he’s still a young lad but he sort of walked out like ‘I’ve got this’ and that for me like he’s got a chance.”<\/p>\n

England’s all-time leading wicket-taker James Anderson was also impressed by Bethell, and believes he has done enough to warrant a run of games at three.<\/p>\n

“I was excited about him before this Ashes series,” said Anderson.<\/p>\n

“His technique might not be there to bat number three, but he showed in that last Test that he might have the technique to have a decent run at three. Albeit on a flat wicket, but I thought he played beautifully. <\/p>\n

“I’ve seen him first hand and have seen the character that he’s got and he’s got exactly what you need to make it in Test cricket. He’s got resilience, he’s got self-belief and he’s calm. <\/p>\n

“England were behind the game in the second innings but he showed the character that he’s got. He just batted properly and like an old-school Test number three, which I thought was great.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Bethell’s character and “front” has similarities to England great Kevin Pietersen, according to former wicketkeeper Matt Prior.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-361511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361511","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=361511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}