RCB’s Jacob Bethell creates history with first professional cricket hundred vs South Africa

The 21-year-old England National Cricket Team batting all-rounder Jacob Bethell has finally smashed his maiden hundred in professional cricket.

Jacob Bethell slammed a marvelous century in the third and final ODI match of the series against the South Africa National Cricket Team at The Rose Bowl in Southampton.

Jacob Bethell hits a 76-ball ton

Young all-rounder Bethell has been on the receiving end of heavy criticism after not performing as expected in the last few matches.

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Bethell didn't look impressive in The Hundred 2025 and started off the ODI series against the Proteas with a score of 1, and the hosts faced a crushing defeat in the match.

In the second match, Jacob Bethell delivered a significantly better performance and smashed 58 runs while picking one wicket, but the Three Lions lost that game too, handing over South Africa a series win.

Meanwhile, in the third ODI, Bethell started off well after coming out to bat at No.4 following a good start from the top-order batters.

He played a positive brand of cricket from the start and punished the bad balls to register a fifty off 48 deliveries. Jacob Bethell decided to further accelerate after that, and he completed his marvelous century off 76 balls, with 11 fours and 3 sixes.

He played a cover-drive for four to reach his first ton in professional cricket and became the second-youngest centurion in ODIs for England after David Gower.

Also Read: Virat Kohli's teammate makes massive revelation on MS Dhoni's IPL future

Youngest England Men's players to hit an ODI ton:

21y 55d – David Gower vs Pakistan, 1978

21y 309d - David Gower vs Australia, 1979

21y 319d - Jacob Bethell vs South Africa, 2025

22y 97d – Craig Kieswetter vs Bangladesh, 2010

22y 239d - Alastair Cook vs India, 2007

Watch: Jacob Bethell completes his first hundred in professional cricket

What a moment 👏
What a talent 🙌
A dream come true 🥹@IGCom | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 #ENGvSA 🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/9NkEMQ4dNd

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) September 7, 2025

I probably should have played slightly more - Jacob Bethell

Bethell has not played a lot of domestic matches recently and featured only in four matches - three in the T20 Blast and one in the County Championship - between the start of the Test series against India in June and his inclusion for the fifth Test.

Bethell has been facing criticism for this, and he addressed it while speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the third ODI. He said that he ignores the outside noise, but admitted that he should have played more cricket. Bethell said:

"There's been a little bit of noise but I don't listen to it much. If I'm honest, I probably should have played slightly more when I wasn't playing in the Test matches, but that's something that I'll take and I'll learn from that.

"Even though I didn't play much in that Test series, I was around the group for a lot of it, and just to watch a high-octane Test series like that was unbelievable. I got a chance in the last Test and unfortunately couldn't go on there and put in a performance, but I've loved [the summer]. Playing for England is a dream come true and hopefully I can do it for a long time to come.

"Now I'm looking at what I have ahead and there's a lot of cricket, so that little gap where I didn't play actually might be quite nice for me," Bethell said