‘Times have changed’: Marcus Trescothick doesn’t mind Jacob Bethell opening for England in Tests

Former England batsman Marcus Trescothick doesn’t believe in specialists at a specific position. As far as he is concerned, the best batsmen available should make up the side, and they can bat at different positions, not necessarily at positions where they have batted all their lives. Ever since England said goodbye to Zak Crawley after the 4-1 Ashes humiliation earlier this year, they have been looking for an opening partner for Ben Duckett, who has not had a great summer either against New Zealand and Pakistan, although he is the only centurion for England in the six games that they played.

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Emilio Gay kept Duckett company at the opening spot and scored three fifties in all. In 11 innings, he scored 271 runs at an average of 24.63. There is talk that the generational talent Jacob Bethell could also be tried as an opener. Bethell, who has batted at No.3 in the past, didn’t play against Pakistan after he picked up injury during the New Zealand series, and his replacement at that number, Jordan Cox has impressed with an average of 50.50 across five innings against Pakistan.

So, when England next line up to play a Test series — in December in South Africa — Bethell could be asked to open the batting with Duckett. Bethell has opened for IPL side Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and of late has started opening in the one-day internationals too.

Trescothick, who was the interim Test coach against Pakistan after new appointee Stephen Fleming opted out of the assignment, appears to be challenging the traditional thinking. He thinks if you are a specialist opener who is doing very well, that’s good, but if you are not doing great, a top-notch player like Bethell from another position should be considered. He added that the players nowadays are quite fast at adapting.

"You generally want your best top seven, however that looks," said Trescothick. "Who that's going to be, I don't know. That's for someone else to work out. I reckon times have changed a little bit. I think you look at your best batting line-up, however that fits up.

"If that's with a specialist opener, great. If not, I think you can plan around it in this day and age. Players adapt pretty quickly because they're chopping and changing formats," he added.

Prateek Srivastava is a senior sports journalist having been in the profession for two decades now. He started his print career with the India Today Group and later also worked for the Asian Age. In 2009, sensing the wind of change, he switched to the digital media and joined Mobile ESPN. There, he covered the 2011 Cricket World Cup and 2010 Hockey World Cup as a venue reporter. He did plenty of voice-over work too, over there. After leaving Mobile ESPN, Prateek went on to work for Cricketnext, Gocricket and Cricbuzz. At Gocricket (Times Internet Limited), he covered the 2014 T20 World from Bangladesh. There he also received a team leadership award, given at the end of the month. Prateek has also covered the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, this time working for Sportz Interactive.