Jacob Bethell signalled his imperious arrival as England’s next great thing with his maiden Test match century in Sydney, joining a short but illustrious line of England players who have scored their first Test hundred in an Ashes match.
For Bethell, the caveat is that his hundred today was also his maiden first-class ton, making him the first since 1989 (more on that later) to combine his first Test century with his debut first class hundred in an Ashes Test. However, widening the parameters to maiden Test hundreds in Ashes matches by England players shows the noteworthy club Bethell is now part of. Ever since he was parachuted in in New Zealand, Bethell has been earmarked for greatness beyond his standing. He proved today, by joining a list populated almost exclusively by England greats, that the future is here now.
To put Bethell’s innings in context, we’ve ranked it among the top-ten postwar maiden centuries by England players, scored in Ashes Tests.
*This list is in ascending order
10. John Edrich – 120
2nd Test, Lord’s, 1964
The first entrant just gets into this list by the situation of the game. At Lord’s in 1964, the first two days of the match were washed out, leading to fears of dangerous batting conditions on the remaining three. Those fears were realised when Australia were skittled by Fred Trueman for 176, although conditions perhaps weren’t quite as treacherous as they were made to look. In response, John Edrich, who had come into England’s side to replace an injured Geoffrey Boycott, scored 120 out 246 – the next-highest score in the innings was 120. At one point, at 83-4 England looked like they could be in real trouble, with the pace of the match suggesting a result could be possible even with the time lost. Edrich took the sting out, batting for over six hours to take time out of the game. In his four previous Tests, his highest score was 41. He finished his career with 12 Test hundreds.
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9. Willie Watson – 109
2nd Test, Lord’s, 1953
For the second name on the list, we’re going back several generations to over 50 years before Bethell was born. On the final day at Lord’s in the 1953 Ashes, England weren’t given a prayer. They needed 323 runs and were already seven wickets down, having lost their top three within the space of six runs the previous evening. Australia’s fearsome duo of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller were bearing down on Willie Watson, in his first Test against Australia, who had already been dropped once.
While keeping in mind that drop as a moment of good fortune, it was Watson’s return the next day which makes this innings stand out. After battling through the early morning with the ball still new, Watson grew in stature. As his innings grew, so did England’s hope. The accuracy of Australia’s bowlers prevented England from chasing a win, but Watson batted England to within 40 minutes of a draw, reaching his maiden Test hundred with a boundary through square-leg. He was out shortly after, but Godfrey Evans and Johnny Wardle held out for a draw thought impossible the night before.
8. Robin Smith – 143
4th Test, Manchester, 1989
Robin Smith, whose passing last month was commemorated at the second Ashes Test in Adelaide, had his finest hour in an England Test shirt in Manchester in 1989. He had narrowly missed out on a maiden Test century in the previous match at Lord’s, and came to Old Trafford determined. England were 23-2 when he came to the crease. He stayed there for nearly six hours, barely offering a chance, completely at ease. Having regarded as one of England’s greatest prospects over the previous two years, like Bethell, this innings marked Smith’s arrival. He scored 143 out of a total of 285, shining amid vastly more experienced and illustrious names.
7. Jack Russell – 128
4th Test, Manchester, 1989
Back-to-back entrants from the same Test are rare on these kinds of rankings, but rarer is Jack Russell beating Robin Smith on a batting list. Russell and Bethell are unique on this list for recording their debut Test hundred and maiden first-class hundred in the same innings. Russell’s 128 gets in above Smith because it saved England from complete humiliation, and it’s situation. England had collapsed spectacularly to 59-6 and were looking at an innings defeat when Russell and John Emburey came together. Russell stayed for almost six hours before he ran out of partners, having forced the game into a fourth innings.
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6. Colin Cowdrey – 102
3rd Test, Melbourne, 1954
In an extraordinary series by the end of which England had won a series in Australia for the first time in 20 years, a 22-year-old (see the parallels?) Colin Cowdrey was selected for his first England tour. Having disappointed in his first two outings, Cowdrey single-handedly held England together at the MCG. He scored 102 out of a total of 191 on day one on a pitch which was so cracked it reportedly resembled “a tessellated pavement”. By the end of Cowdrey’s career, his innings in Melbourne was still widely regarded the best of his 22 Test hundreds, and regarded by Bill O’Reilly as the best Test innings he had ever seen.
5. Ben Stokes – 120
3rd Test, Perth, 2013
Another arrival of a future great on a shambolic tour of Australia, Ben Stokes watched Bethell repeat a part of his own story from the dressing room in Sydney. Twelve years ago, on his first Test tour, Stokes provided a brief respite from England’s melancholy. On a day five pitch marked with cracks, facing Mitchell Johnson snarling down the pitch, Stokes gave the first glimpse of that audacious never-say-die character he’s epitomised ever since. He dispatched Johnson and attacked Nathan Lyon on his way to a superb maiden hundred, showing the failings of his senior teammates in even sharper light. That innings remains his only Test hundred in Australia, but it was a goodie.
4. Jonathan Trott – 119
5th Test, The Oval, 2009
Now we’re getting into the folklore. Jonathan Trott was called-up for the final Test match in 2009, with England on the brink of winning a second home Ashes series in succession. Despite having secured a first-innings lead of 172, England were at risk of throwing it all away when they were 39-3 in the second. That’s when an unknown, eccentric, South African-born batter strolled to the crease, and adjusted his gloves several times before facing up. Trott went on to make 119, setting up a remarkable win the following day. It wasn’t just the context of Trott on debut, the debate over dropping Ravi Bopara to make way for him, but the theatre of the final Ashes Test, victory on the line, Australia battered and bruised, and Trott so calm in the midst of the noise. It was the start of one of the finest Test careers of an England batter this century.
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3. Graham Thorpe – 110
3rd Test, Nottingham, 1993
Trott’s innings came 16 years after Graham Thorpe also scored a maiden Test hundred on debut in an Ashes game. Called-up half-way through the 1993 series with England already 2-0 down and having suffered seven consecutive Test defeats, Thorpe became the first England player to score a Test hundred on debut for 20 years. The actual innings, Thorpe at his stylish, fluent best, was a breath of fresh air amid stagnation. Having pushed England to over 400 in their second innings with a near faultless innings, Thorpe put England within reach of forcing a result. Graham Gooch declared to set Australia a target of 371, and by the time the match ended in a draw, England were only four wickets away from a win.
2. Jacob Bethell – 154
5th Test, Sydney, 2026
After 70 years of history on this list, we arrive at Bethell. There are several reasons why his innings is ranked this highly. For a start, the scale of the challenge he was thrown in to do. Bat at No.3 amidst a confused and rapidly unravelling batting lineup, series already lost, in your third Test match in the last year, with such limited red-ball experience it’s basically irrelevant. With that context in mind, the mix of maturity and style he balanced perfectly was staggering.
The flicks of his wrists as he flayed Mitchell Starc to the boundary, the ice-cool face as he waited in the 90s for seven balls before remembering he could smash Beau Webster over the boundary. Mostly, however, it was how a 22-year-old in his fifth Test showed his teammates who had made it look so complicated for six weeks, how simple it really is.
1. Kevin Pietersen – 158
5th Test, The Oval, 2005
No other innings could top this list than the ultimate prodigal emergence of Kevin Pietersen. His innings at The Oval is perhaps why, whenever a new maverick emerges, we search for how to compare them to the one who did it best – bonus points for streaks of dyed blonde hair. Pietersen’s innings in the afternoon sun at The Oval, in the ultimate series, will always hold a central place in English cricketing mythology. It was impossible audacity, immortalised by the image of the handshake Sharne Warne chased him to give as he walked off the field.
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