Sam Collins: Poor old Ian Bell
December 26th, 2009 by Sam Collins in Test cricketIan Bell keeps his place at Durban, to snorts and grunts everywhere. We know what Sir Ian would do, “What’s the point in bringing them if you don’t play them?”, he chuntered this morning while the camera focused on Liam Plunkett and Luke Wright. You have to have reserves Beefy.
At the moment (40 odd for 2) Andrew Strauss will be happy with Anderson, Onions and Broady after a dangerous and disciplined start. Not only have they made Graeme Smith look (a little) stupid, always nice, but they are taking the focus away from the decision to play four bowlers on a pitch that has been described as batsman-friendly. Things can change quickly though, especially with Smith and Jacques Kallis at the crease.
The chief beneficiary was Bell, who everyone had assumed was done for after twin failure at Centurion. Poor Bell, done over not only by Harris and de Wet, but every English hack you could care to name. ‘Inevitable failure’, ‘hapless’, ‘meek surrender’ – the words are now clichés in the same sentence as ‘Bell’. Tomorrow the English wait, coiled to spring on another misjudged straight one, another dangled bat. Even another snorter nicked behind.
Anyone would think Bell hadn’t scored a Test run for years. In fact, he played the innings that set up Ashes victory in The Oval Test, all of two games ago. Unfortunately for him, being tall, blonde and ripping out stumps, or scoring a second-innings hundred on debut are both more media friendly.
Strauss will remember that it wasn’t until the sixth innings of his comeback against the Kiwis in 2008 that he made the 177 that saved his career, on the back of a first innings duck. It came just as the press were losing patience (Alastair Cook take note), and as much as players claim not to read the papers, sustained attack can do no good. The worry is that Bell is past the point of no return.
If he does fail in Durban – departing to the same old criticism never to return – the wasted talent may be as much our fault as it is his.
Sam Collins is website editor of thewisdencricketer.com
Follow him on twitter @wisdencric_sam
Posted in Test cricket | 3 Comments »
December 26th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I hear the sentiment that he might be past the point of no return. If England want to know what ‘momentum’ actually means, they could study criticism of Ian Bell, which is pretty much self-sustaining now, no matter what he does.
Leaving straight ones doesn’t help, mind.
December 26th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Is he as big a meathead as Shane Watson?
It’s a close run thing between the two of them.
December 29th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Bell did score the runs to set up the Ashes victory at the Oval, that is true.
And he can only be left out now in this series for reasons of team set up, ie, if England need to play 5 bowlers at any stage, which now looks unlikely.
As for Botham, he is great at criticizing. Would anyone at Sky dare go back and pull out some of his past remarks and show how unaccurate they have been? I doubt it.
Whats the point of bringing Wright and Plunkett? Is Botham saying he would have torn the team sheet up after one test of the tour? Probably.
As usual he is wrong.