{"id":516936,"date":"2026-04-07T03:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/516936\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T03:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:18:08","slug":"jamie-smith-matches-james-rew-century-in-race-to-be-england-wicketkeeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/516936\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Smith matches James Rew century in race to be England wicketkeeper"},"content":{"rendered":"

As strange as it might seem, the battle for England\u2019s Test wicketkeeping berth is taking place at No 3 in the County Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No sooner had Somerset\u2019s James Rew notched his 12th first-class hundred, the incumbent Jamie Smith issued a reminder of his abundant class with a measured, mature century of his own to save Surrey from defeat against Warwickshire.<\/p>\n

Smith is one of a number of England regulars under pressure and, with the management promising that championship performances will be taken into consideration this summer, Rew is a cricketer demanding attention. He made a Test squad last summer and is a Lions regular, with Somerset claiming that only Sir Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar had more than his 12 centuries at the age of 22. Eagle-eyed statisticians have pointed out that Denis Compton, WG Grace and Ricky Ponting are also in that club. Nevertheless, he is keeping elite company.<\/p>\n

It is easy to forget how high Smith\u2019s stock was midway through the series against India last summer. Since, little has gone right: he tired towards the end of an arduous series, which bled into his white-ball performances, leading to him being discarded; he was overlooked in the Indian Premier League auction; worst of all, he had an underwhelming Ashes, including a bad drop at Brisbane, and a couple of unforgettably ugly dismissals, most notably to Marnus Labuschagne at Sydney.<\/p>\n

At Edgbaston, amid a Surrey collapse in gloomy conditions, he started the season with a flat-footed edge behind. Ben Foakes, his predecessor as England keeper, bailed Surrey out with a fine hundred. Foakes remains a contender, as does Jordan Cox, although he is bench-warming at the Indian Premier League, rather than playing for Essex.<\/p>\n

But, having conceded 544 by the time Smith walked out to bat again, his side were back in the mire, still 216 behind against a sporting Warwickshire attack. His 132, which took almost six hours, ended with Surrey 150 in front and the game safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As strange as it might seem, the battle for England\u2019s Test wicketkeeping berth is taking place at No…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[11676,1721,7681,180339,217,101,5438,180338,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-516936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-county-championship","tag-cricket","tag-england-cricket-team","tag-somerset-ccc","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-surrey-ccc","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516936","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=516936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}