Jacob Bethell’s 15-Minute Blitz Leads Birmingham Bears to Dominant Victory Over Northamptonshire
Jacob Bethell showed off his incredible talent with a stunning undefeated 56 off just 16 balls, leading the Birmingham Bears to a decisive 90-run victory over the Northamptonshire Steelbacks in the Vitality Blast encounter at Edgbaston.
The twenty-year-old Bethell led his team to 219 for four after smashing an undefeated 56 from just 16 balls, which included the fastest half-century for the Bears in the Blast at 15 balls.
Northamptonshire 129 for 9 (Bethell 2-18) was defeated by Birmingham Bears 219 for 4 (Bethell 56*, Barnard 48, Mousley 43) by a margin of 90 runs.
Ed Barnard (48, 29), Dan Mousley (43, 26), and Alex Davies (36, 29) had already set the stage for a respectable score, but Bethell’s ferocious barrage of seven sixes, four of which came from Ben Sanderson in the last over, transformed respectable into spectacular.
The Steelbacks then staggered to 129 for nine (Bethell adding two for 18 to his heroics at bat) and lost to the Bears for the eighth time in a row in the Twenty20 format. Fast bowler Richard Gleeson’s limping off the field after his seventh ball, seemingly due to a hamstring injury, was the lone setback of the evening for the home team.
Barnard grabbed his first T20 opportunity of the season with a hungry appetite when the Bears decided to bat. He and captain Davies shared an opening stand of 80 runs in 52 balls, with Davies happy to be the sidekick.
With a brilliant performance of 4-0-21-2, which featured the breakthrough wicket when Barnard slogged to deep mid-wicket, Ravi Bopara did the most to stifle the hitters. Hain smashed a return catch to Bopara after Davies chipped to mid-wicket, but Mousley batted with characteristic bluster, slog-sweeping Freddie Heldreich to Sikandar Raza on the mid-wicket fence.
This introduced Bethell, a Barbados native who astonished the audience by hitting 50 in just 15 minutes. The innings’ final five overs produced 92 runs.
The visitors’ early batting showed how the impact of Bethell’s looting had affected Northants, who were horrified. The top order went all in and suffered the price when there was intense pressure from the scoreboard.
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Barnard brilliantly caught David Willey at extra cover off Gleeson, who George Bartlett chipped gently to mid on. Despite Gleeson’s 1.1-0-2-2 stats when he left the field, the Bears persevered and won. It was 20 for three and the Steelbacks had used up 16 deliveries and three wickets without removing the points the Bears had earned in the twentieth over when Matt Breetzke slapped a heave at Craig Miles.
The sixth over proved to be even more disastrous for the Steelbacks as George Garton removed both Raza and Saif Zaib, who were caught at extra cover and slip, respectively, off consecutive balls. Miles dismissed Lewis McManus with a brilliant catch that was just inches inside the mid-wicket rope, extending Bethell’s good day.
Bopara was still there, and although he has historically performed some improbable miracles for his teams, scoring 151 off 67 balls while keeping four wickets intact was beyond and above even his remarkable abilities. The Steelbacks’ chances of a comeback were dashed with his departure, stumping off Jake Lintott, just as a magnificent sunset—a sublime mix of pinks, purples, and oranges—set upon the sylvan Birmingham skyline.
