The Ashes Briefing: Bethell offers taster of a bright England future to delay Australia’s victory charge – Beragampengetahuan

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It will take something remarkable to prevent Australia completing victory on Thursday to give this series the 4-1 gloss their dominance deserves, but England, a long beaten team searching desperately for positives, will at least leave Sydney having found their silver lining.

Jacob Bethell, their great batting hope amid the debris of this tour, stood tall at the SCG to compile a sublime unbeaten 142 and extend the hosts’ inconvenience into the fifth game’s final day. His maiden first-class — let alone Test — century was confirmed with a tension-lancing scythe over midwicket in the last session, writes Dominic Fifield.

His father, Graham, was reduced to tears of joy in the crowd.

Bethell has already faced more balls in this single innings than Ben Duckett has confronted through the entire series, and eclipsed the total runs scored by Ollie Pope, the man preferred ahead of him until Melbourne, across three matches in this knock alone.

The composure and class with which the 22-year-old batted offer some hope for the future, as:

• Bethell, with 15 boundaries in his 142, became the fifth Englishman to score his maiden first-class 100 in a Test match.
• Australia all-rounder Beau Webster followed up his 71 not out with two wickets in three balls, and 3-51 by the close.
• England lost five wickets after tea, including that of an injured Ben Stokes, to end only 119 ahead with two wickets remaining.
• The visitors’ captain will not be able to bowl after suffering a groin injury in the day’s third over.

Here, Tim Spiers and Cameron Ponsonby dissect the key talking points from day four at the SCG.

The excellent Scott Boland is congratulated by his Australia team-mates (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Ben Stokes. Broken

Perhaps the only surprise was it hadn’t happened sooner.

England’s other injury-prone bowlers, Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, had lasted one and three Tests respectively. Gus Atkinson played two-and-a-bit before he pulled his hamstring.

Stokes, who seldom completes a five-Test series these days, had dragged his creaking, aching body through almost five full matches of hard, hot, energy-sapping cricket, like scraping butter over too much bread, but somehow soldiering on.

And then it pinged. Specifically, his right adductor, four balls into his second over of the day.

Ben Stokes breaks down after delivering his 10th ball of day four (Morgan Hancock – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)

Stokes grimaced, bit his collar and headed straight for the dressing room, unable to complete his over. It was a desperately sad sight but also a predictable one. Stokes, like his team, broken and beaten by an Ashes tour.

He had pushed himself beyond his limits for England yet again with one of those familiar Herculean efforts, doing more for his team than his body would allow.

Stokes was into his 28th over. That’s the most he has ever bowled as England captain. He had only bowled five more in an innings during his entire England career — 34 against India at Trent Bridge back in 2014.

It was also more than a quarter of the overs he has sent down all series here, with 27.4 of the 101.1 he’s bowled during the five Tests. He had been rewarded with 15 wickets, a tally he has only beaten once — with 17 over the summer against India — but one which came at a cost. He could hardly move when he came out to bat at No 8 in England’s second innings; he may have looked disgusted to be out, but his nick to slip was almost a relief.

Ben Stokes limps back to the pavilion after pulling his groin bowling his 10th delivery of day four (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

England’s Ashes with the ball began in Perth with Wood, Archer, Atkinson, Stokes and Brydon Carse steamrolling through the hosts for 132 — their joint-lowest score of the series. It had been one of the finest bowling performances produced by an England team in Australia, well, ever.

England’s Ashes with the ball ended with Carse, Josh Tongue, the bedraggled Matthew Potts and part-time spinners Will Jacks and Jacob Bethell bowling Australia out for 567, their highest score of the series.

It was a perfect summary of how their tour has completely unravelled.

Tim Spiers

Farewell to the Crawley phenomenon?

Zak, we are doing a performance review. And your name has come up.

It’s funny how quickly these things change. Following Adelaide, Zak Crawley had half-centuries in consecutive matches. That these had arrived following a pair in the opening Test was evidence of his ticker; his bouncebackability and the fact he really was tailor made for these conditions. His 85 in Adelaide was beautiful. This is the cricketer we’ve all been told about.

But four failures later (5, 37, 16, 1) and Crawley’s average for the series finished at 27.30. His career average of 31.18 has long been forgiven with this tour in mind. Yes, he’s not consistent. No, he’s not scoring bulk runs. But yes, he will be perfect for the Ashes.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. And we are now left with a four-year experiment that has a full sample size upon which to look back.

Mitchell Starc celebrates and Zak Crawley contemplates the end of his series (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

The Crawley phenomenon was born in Sydney four years ago where a fluid 77 had the greats purring. It may end in Sydney also, leaving a Mitchell Starc in-ducker and falling leg before wicket for one.

The numbers are not kind to Crawley. By the end of England’s home summer against India in 2025, no one in history had opened the batting so often but averaged so little. Across his career, he has made only two centuries in England wins. The first, against Pakistan in 2022 where he scored one of four hundreds in the innings. And the second, against Zimbabwe last year, where he was one of three.

That century against Zimbabwe is the only time he has reached three figures since the 2023 Ashes and came against a weak attack in a match that was not part of the World Test Championship (WTC). It is not much of a stretch to argue it should be discounted as part of his wider record. Erling Haaland isn’t counting goals in the League Cup.

Perfect start for Australia as Mitchell Starc removes Zak Crawley in the opening over! pic.twitter.com/jpiCBOBJnD

— Cricket on TNT Sports (@cricketontnt) January 7, 2026

As such, if you remove non-WTC matches from Crawley’s record, by the time England next play Test cricket he will have averaged 29.41 in the last three years of his career. You can’t run on potential forever.

Crawley is now 64 Test matches into his career. He has played more than Graeme Swann. Such has been his backing it is unclear who would even next be in line to open the innings. But whoever it is, for the first time in four years, it’d be worth keeping their phone on loud.

Cameron Ponsonby

Scott Boland. Australia’s unsung hero

Every good rock ‘n’ roll band needs a bass player and it’s no different for a decent Test bowling attack. Everyone needs a Scott Boland, the unsung hero of Australia’s Ashes.

Rhythmic, metronomic, consistent — while Mitchell Starc rightly takes the glory for his 90mph wicket-taking in-swingers, it’s Boland who underpins this Australian seam attack on home soil, where he has no peers.

He reproduces the same three-note bar on repeat over and over again, “top-of-off, top-of-off, top-of-off”, and then occasionally turns into Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, unleashing a charismatic, unplayable ball that seams and dazzles.

Mostly, though, Boland strangles batters with his suffocating and deadly accurate line and length. Even one of the greatest ever to play the game, Joe Root, could not work out how to break free of the 36-year-old’s shackles here, failing to score a single run off him for 23 balls in a row before finally yielding to the python-like grip when missing one that honed in on his pads.

The outstanding Scott Boland (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

During this spell Boland barely gave a thing away. His opening nine overs went for just 12.

Cast your minds back to November and you may recall Boland had actually started the series badly, with 0-62 in 10 uninspiring overs at Perth. You wondered if England were going to target him successfully like they had in 2023, where Boland took just two wickets in two matches and went at almost five an over.

However, with coach Andrew McDonald taking the blame for Boland’s poor Perth start after admitting he had asked him to bowl uncharacteristically full, since then he has reigned supreme.

His economy rate for the series is just over three, bettered only by Jofra Archer (of bowlers who’ve played three or more Tests) and would be appreciably less without that first innings in Perth. Almost quietly, he has taken 20 wickets, the third most of any player in the series. He’s also relentlessly tied up an end and built pressure — something England’s bowlers have constantly failed to manage.

Joe Root departs for six as Boland takes the wicket! pic.twitter.com/JQMp8Sru5j

— Cricket on TNT Sports (@cricketontnt) January 7, 2026

When you throw in the moment he scored a boundary off the final ball of day one at the MCG, joyously greeted by his home crowd as if he’d scored the winning runs in a World Cup final, and it has been another memorable series for the Victorian, whose 69 wickets in 14 Test matches in Australia have come at a remarkable average of only 16.02.

“What Ben Stokes would have given to have a bowler like that in his group,” said ex England bowler Stuart Broad on SEN Radio. “It’s the art of Test match bowling; repeat, be relentless, hit an area and one might deviate. If you’re spraying around all over the place you’ll leak runs.

“He’s a really impressive flat wicket bowler because he doesn’t miss the top of the stumps.”

In an Ashes of TikTok cricket, Boland has stuck to his sepia methods and England haven’t worked out how to better him. Maybe ‘Bazball’ can learn a thing or two from this old fashioned bowling relic; top of off, top of off.

Tim Spiers

Jacob Bethell provides a glimpse of England’s future

Twenty-four balls in the nervous nineties was plenty more than enough, thank you.

The discourse of over a year, Jacob Bethell, the boy wonder — or Star Boy, as he’s known in camp — finally made a first-class century. It was all class, too: at the SCG, in an Ashes Test, with his family there. And his Dad cried. It doesn’t get much better.

On a tour full of reasons to be miserable, England leave with at least one ray of light for the future.

Jacob Bethell impressed in England’s second innings (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Bethell has always looked the part. First selected as a 20-year-old for England’s white-ball series against Australia in 2024, his introduction into the England environment was love at first sight for all the management involved.

His first Test tour came a few months later with a trip to New Zealand. An injury to Jordan Cox, who had been due to keep wicket, saw a reshuffle and a decision that shocked everyone. Bethell, only just 21, would be batting at No 3.

It worked. The glove fitted. Three Tests saw three half-centuries scored and Ollie Pope, the man who had been in possession, looked set to be collateral. Sorry, mate. We’ve met someone else.

What a way to bring up your first Test century for England! 👏 pic.twitter.com/3qofLzM9TV

— Cricket on TNT Sports (@cricketontnt) January 7, 2026

But England bottled it. With Bethell at the IPL, he missed the Test against Zimbabwe in May and Pope scored 171. Pope then followed it up with a ton against India before his form dropped away dramatically. England wanted Bethell, but felt stuck with Pope.

It wasn’t until the Boxing Day Test, with the Ashes already lost, that the swap was finally made. And in the two matches since, Bethell has made a match-winning 40, and 142 not out here.

His century today made him the fourth youngest man to make a Test century at No 3 for England in history, and the first in the Ashes since Jonathan Trott. A few months ago, he led the white-ball team in a series in Ireland, making him the youngest English captain in history. They have loved him forever. And although they asked him out too late for this series, they got there in the end.

Get used to Bethell being around for a while.

Cameron Ponsonby