Ian Bell

Hate Ian Bell?

A lot of people hate Ian Bell – England supporters mostly. Given a choice between his playing crap and getting dropped or his playing well and averaging 55, a lot of people would choose the first option.

We’d choose the second. For all his flaws, 26 year-olds who can average 40 in Tests for England aren’t that common. Despite evidence to the contrary, we think he can push on and become a hardened Test batsman. We’d prefer him to do this from further down the order though.

We’ve no great love for Ian Bell. We’re not pro-Bell. We just think that if you’ve got an experienced Test batsman with a lot of years left in him, you should make the most of him.

But he is a bit irritating. His affected puffed-out chest strut is frankly embarrassing for one thing. He developed it because he decided he needed to have more presence at the crease, but it doesn’t work.

If Bell genuinely swaggered, that would be fine, but he said that this was a conscious ploy when he started doing it which entirely negates the exercise. It looks like what it is – a bluff.

Score a load of runs in tough situations and you’ll have presence whatever you do. Look at Shivnarine Chanderpaul. You can’t swagger when your manufacturer has attached all your joints the wrong way round.

What could be better than Ian Bell’s 199?

Ian Bell’s innings of 199 against South Africa was better than waking up on a Saturday thinking it’s a Monday and then realising the truth. It was better than hearing the phone ring and picking it up only to hear a dialling tone. It was even better than being asleep.

It had skill. It had determination. It had urgency when urgency was required. It had patience when patience was required. It had single-mindedness and it had beautiful, delicious remorselessness which we hadn’t even dreamed that Bell possessed.

So what could possibly be better than that? The obvious answer as to what could be better than an innings of 199 would be to say 200, but you’d be wrong. The correct, mathematically counter-intuitive answer would be an innings of 157.

For it isn’t just about the scoring or how the scoring’s done. It’s who’s doing the scoring. Rob Key hit 157 against Yorkshire this weekend.

He did everything that Ian Bell did, only he did it in Rob Key’s body, floating inches off the floor throughout and with the effortless indifference of a man who just doesn’t care, but who also cares quite a lot.

The state of England’s batting

Winning a Test by an innings is not to be sniffed at. What exactly would you expect to smell? England didn’t exactly dominate the series like they dominated this last match though.

Overall, the team looks okay, but there are quite a few flaws, the most glaring of which is the middle order batting of Bell and Collingwood.

Ian Bell looked like England’s best batsman in Sri Lanka but didn’t really influence proceedings. In New Zealand he hit a hundred when it was least needed. In this series he’s been virtually absent.

Bell will stay, but Paul Collingwood is currently Mark Knopfler (he’s in Dire Straits). Like Bell he’s rather prone to the ineffectual fifty. He’s not been dreadful until this series and if he does get dropped it’ll be for a lack of hundreds.

We can’t escape the feeling that Tim Ambrose isn’t ‘the answer’ either.

England v New Zealand, third Test at Trent Bridge, day four
England 364 (Kevin Pietersen 115, Tim Ambrose 67, Stuart Broad 64, Iain O’Brien 4-74, Kyle Mills 3-76)
New Zealand 123 (James Anderson 7-43)
New Zealand 232 (Brendon McCullum 71, Jacob Oram 50, Ryan Sidebottom 6-67)
England win and take the series 2-0

England’s middle order shows signs of improvement

We all know how important it is to look to the positives. England’s players and coaches have taught us this for years now.

Ian Bell batted at five and made a three-ball duck. Paul Collingwood batted at six and made a four-ball duck.

England’s middle order batsmen are making tangible progress in terms of occupation of the crease.

Well played England!

Ian Bell can’t see it out

Both Ian Bell and Matt Prior withstood the Sri Lankans for quite some time, but they couldn’t finish the job. Muttiah Muralitharan got both of them – with the new ball, no less.

Bell had a good match, but if you’re the batsman in form, you need to influence proceedings. He top-scored in both innings with 83 in the first and 74 in the second, but that’s not enough. If you’re the guy who’s having success, you need to capitalise. Kumar Sangakkara did just that and Sri Lanka have won.

Ian Bell shouldn’t be satisfied with being England’s highest scorer. He should have been aiming to be the highest scorer on either team. We’re sure that he was, but is there a part of him that felt like he’d done something worthwhile already? If you lose, it’s useless.

Is that a peculiarly English characteristic to be satisfied with a personal performance even in defeat, or is it a peculiarly English characteristic to say that that’s the case?

Sri Lanka v England, day four of the first Test at Kandy
Sri Lanka 188 all out (Kumar Sangakkara 92, Prasanna Jayawardene 51, Matthew Hoggard 4-29, Monty Panesar 3-46)
England 281 all out (Ian Bell 83, Muttiah Muralitharan 6-55)
Sri Lanka 442-8 declared (Kumar Sangakkara 152, Benevolent Uncle Sanath 78, Mahela Jayawardene 65, Money Panesar 3-132)
England 261 all out (Ian Bell 74, Matt Prior 63, Chaminda Vaas 3-56, Muttiah Muralitharan 3-85)

Ian Bell – ink him in at three

We’d planned to write something about how Ian Bell supplied the padding in the ‘meal’ of an England innings – the bulk that everyone takes for granted, without really paying any attention to it. Slightly dull, but integral to the construction of the meal.

There were going to be lots of foodstuffs likened to various cricketers, but then we imagined seeing it all on screen and imagined our readers’ disappointed reactions, so we didn’t bother. All you need to know is that Ian Bell was either potatoes, rice, pasta or bread.

We’ve pretty much written the thing anyway, haven’t we? We’ve probably written more about not writing it than we would have written in the first place.

James Anderson and Stuart Broad were really good too. What culinary ingredients would they be?

England v India, third one-day international at Edgbaston
England 281-8 (Ian Bell 79, RP Singh 3-55)
India 239 all out (Sourav Ganguly 72, Rahul Dravid 56, James Anderson 3-32)