Bears all-rounder Jake Bethell reports in for the Bears fans from the West Indies as he and his England team-mates prepare for their Under 19s World Cup quarter-final against South Africa on Wednesday.
It has been a nice start for us to win all three group games, against Bangladesh, Canada and UAE. It was pretty unexpected for us to start with such a comprehensive victory against Bangladesh but we said before that game that we wanted to set the tone with a good performance to stand us in good stead for the group. That’s what we did and then backed that up with further good wins against Canada and UAE who are not quite as strong.
I have been pretty happy with my contributions. It was nice to pretty much see the guys home with the bat against Bangladesh. Then in the second game I didn’t really contribute with the bat but did with the ball – that’s the joy of being an all-rounder. I would have like to have cashed in a bit more with the bat in the third match but it was a good, solid team performance.
We are all really excited to be in the quarter-finals and there is some confidence growing in the camp. We won our two warm up games too, including one after we had been under pressure at one point, and it was good to get a win from a pressure situation because we have that experience now. Our top order is firing so if we do get into a situation where we need to rebuild, we have done that. We have all bases covered and some momentum behind us now. Now it is a question of training hard and doing everything we can to be ready for South Africa. We know they have good players and are a strong team. It would be a dream to win the World Cup but we need to win three more games to do that and, at the moment, no-one is looking beyond the first of them. It is just great to still be involved in the tournament – that dream is still alive!
Jake
