A brilliant hundred against an elite attack on a wearing pitch shows this England team can survive and evolve
Et in dystopia ego. In the midst of death, we are in life. On a throbbingly hot deep blue afternoon in Sydney, as this ghost ship of an England Ashes tour creaked towards its final dock, the fourth day of the fifth Test produced an unexpected late plot twist. Something good happened.
Jacob Bethell batted for six hours from mid-morning to close of play and scored a hundred of rare beauty at the SCG. It was an easy, crisp kind of beauty too, all classical lines and symmetry, an innings of layers and gears, of comforting rhythms, shot through with moments of balletic power.
It seems a bit absurd that Bethell’s first professional red-ball hundred should come on this stage. But then, this was just one of those moments in sport where a genuinely elite talent reveals itself. And Bethell is so clearly a premium product, despite the best efforts of the England regime to fudge his progress. He’s the Mercedes- Benz SL convertible. He’s an entire wheel of cave-aged yak milk super cheese. He’s a third-innings 142 not out at the SCG in bleached-out afternoon sunshine.
At times the SCG seemed to be purring to itself, allowing this spectacle to breathe in its own space. So many things have been declared dead on this tour. Test cricket. The Australian summer. The cult of Baz. Proper batting. Proper bowling. Proper spin bowling. The art of precision lawn mowing.
