Named as captain of Birmingham Phoenix for the 2026 Hundred.

Well deserved Jacob! The guy shows maturity beyond his years.....

I'm just watching Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the opening IPL T20, expecting to see Jacob in action, but he's been left out??

Bethell left on the subs bench again for RCB? I can't help thinking he'll be rusty if and when he gets a chance. Still, he's picking up a nice pay cheque!

I just don't get it

I am sure at one point, when Paul Collingwood played in the IPL, he went a whole season without a game or maybe just played one. Bethell will no doubt be played in the 1st Test with barely any cricket, the last IPL game is 31st May and the 1st Test is 4th June v New Zealand. Even if he gets left out and is allowed to go home, how much cricket will he be able to play. Our last CC game starts on 15th May and then it's The T20 Blast so he would be unlikely to have any CC cricket and even if he did, not enough to really make an assessment of his form. Hand all the power to India and this is what we get.

If you recall, in that last test against India last year, Jacob lacked game time, and looked short of any rhythm. England kept denying him playing for Warwickshire in the championship. He got only limited white ball cricket. I don't get it with how he's treated. At 22 you need to play!

No better practice at playing the long-form game than CC practice playing the long-form game but this lot of clowns who are picking and supposedly running the team should have picked someone else just to try and close up the series. Keeping someone so young, away from playing is criminal to the point where in a few years he could sit back and actually work out how little he has played per year. It happened with Woakes after 2012, they pulled him out of so many games that season so that he didn't actually play that much in the CC and then continued to do it every year including one winter where he played no games and when all the CC games started the next season, the ECB said he couldn't play as he needed to rest.

ECB / England has no influence over what these Indian franchises do so not blaming them so much right now.

Of course it begs the question what he's doing in the IPL in the first place. Last season I thought it made sense as he seemed to be pointing toward white ball focus. Might still be the case that England see him as a white ball specialist so very concerning that Eng / ECB are happy to sacrifice a test match just so Jacob can have a shot in what is essentially an Indian domestic competition.

Kind of hope he does get left out of the first test of the summer now. Who replaces him don't know though.