England's settled six It's right to stand by Pope, Bethell can learn like Lara

There always seems to be one man under pressure in England's batting lineup. The consensus over the winter seemed to be that Jacob Bethell's emergence had put Ollie Pope's place at risk.

- Mark Ramprakash

There always seems to be one man under pressure in England's batting lineup. The consensus over the winter seemed to be that Jacob Bethell's emergence had put Ollie Pope's place at risk. Pope has clung on for the start of the India series and Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum should be very careful before they mess with what is probably the most settled top six of any Test side.

There was speculation about Pope and Zak Crawley before they scored centuries in last month's game against Zimbabwe, but that performance should have secured their spots for this series at least.

Bethell is a huge talent and some really top cricketers have spoken very highly about his performances and potential - clearly his time will come. He was impressive in New Zealand over the winter and since then we have seen exhilarating glimpses of his ability in shorter formats.

Who knows what lies ahead for him but, in considering his position now, I think back to the visit of West Indies in 1991, when they had an emerging left-handed batter in their squad by the name of Brian Lara. Though people were already hugely excited by him, Lara spent the entire series as 12th man before coming into the side the following year. While the rest of Bethell's career may not live up to that of the brilliant Trinidadian, I can see its next stage following Lara's.