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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Barney Ronay

Old-tech Bashir is trying something wild and brave amid the battle for Bethell

Illustration depicting Jacob Bethell and Shoaib Bashir
Jacob Bethell has the modern sex-stuff, the slogs and the dinks. Shoaib Bashir is an old-tech red-ball bowler plonking away on his harpsichord. Illustration: Matt Johnstone

Bruised skies, sun through clouds, dualism, life in death. Welcome to the bloom of another England Test Match summer, the summer, this time around, of Bethell and Bashir. But of Bethell first because he’s the easy bit.

The battle for Jacob Bethell is of course just beginning. Everyone wants a piece of England’s most thrillingly talented young cricketer. The broadcasters are frothing. The papers want to know whose shirts he wears. Actually the papers don’t really care. Maybe the Daily Telegraph wants to know this at a push. But Bethell is still kind of perfect right now, a future-bomb, all promise and new things, in a sport that is always desperate for these.

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