The England Cricket Board (ECB) have announced a 16-man contingent for their upcoming three-match Test series against New Zealand, starting November 28 at the Hagley Oval, Christchurch. They have made just one change to their squad against Pakistan with Smith set to miss the entire New Zealand series. This means, Jordan Cox, who was yet to debut would be donning the gloves in Smith’s absence.
Bethal, who turned 21 this year, has been an exciting prospect in the white ball format and scored a match-defining 24-ball 44* against Australia in the second T20I in Cardiff. Although the youngster has played just 20 first-class matches, his inclusion is an example of ECB’s new policy to not just pick tried and tested individuals in the domestic circuit but focus on fresh faces who can make an immediate impact. Yet another such option was Josh Hull who was a part of the Sri Lankan Test series.
“It’s nice to tick off two of them [ODIs and T20I] but definitely the best one’s yet to come, hopefully. Test cricket has always been my dream, and I know it’s taken a different shape in the last three years but, definitely, that’s still my dream, to play Test cricket for England. I haven’t really found a place where I’ve gone, ‘right, this feels like home in terms of a place in the batting order’, but I think that could be anywhere from opening the batting to batting No. 7. Especially with bowling off spin, I’m hoping that I can get into a team being a genuine allrounder. so wherever that may be in the batting order it doesn’t really matter, it’s just actually getting into that team.”
Currently, the Three Lions are stationed sixth in the 2023-25 World Test Championship points table with 40 percentage points. Even if they win all three matches against the Kiwis, the road to the WTC finals look quite improbable for the Ben Stokes-led troop.
England Test squad for New Zealand series: Ben Stokes (c), Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Jordan Cox (wk), Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes
