He's been awarded a 2 year central contract. Congratulations to him, hopefully he'll be allowed to play some cricket during that time.

Perhaps not a lot - he's not in the 12 for the first Test. I notice, though, that he's signed up for the IPL again. I'm really not sure this is good for his development.

Nice work if you can get it:
"The Cricketer understands that the left-hander will earn £350,000 from being retained as one of Phoenix's pre-auction signings."

Bethell to replace Ollie Pope for the next Ashes Test at the MCG.

England always do this on Australia tours. Wait until the series is over and then throw a young player in. They’re going to ruin him like so many before him.

I agree that it's asking too much of him to come in without match practice at this stage of the series. I think he is more resilient as a character than some who have been put in that situation so my guess is he will survive.

Yeah I doubt he'll die.

Seems like Pope has run his race, meaning the number 3 spot is wide open for Bethell in the test team

Yeah I wonder if this is another turning point. Come in and got a crucial 40, so hard to see a way back for Pope next summer. Yet Jacob is off to IPL and will miss red ball games to warm up for the summer series. What does he do now? Until this point I suspected England were looking at him for test back up but essentially a white ball focus. For which IPL would have been beneficial.

Let's hope that he can score some runs in a "proper" Test match at Sydney. He played a key knock at the MCG but it was more like a white ball innings.

It was good to see Ricky Ponting praising Jacob, a slightly less biased view than some of the English media and pundits.