In the first of a new series of exclusive extracts from England players’ diaries, Alan Tyers takes a peak into the crazy world of Ian Bell.

I was well pleased when they asked me to do this diary which is like an old fashioned word for what you put on your Facebook Wall but you can text it in and don’t even have to speak to the riter on the phone.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I will have many cool bits of insider information or titbits about the England team as none of them are speaking to me. I am in disgrace even worse than Fred was after Mr Fletcher caught him drinking Malibu with Snapey in the Team Psychiatrist And Motivationator Specialist’s Office when he should of been out on the park sticking it up Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s nose with the second new ball.

It was the root of evil that done it. Not Shane Warne, I mean. Money though. All the boys have been well excited about the Stanford match although obviously we are looking upon it as just a chance to gain experience in this new format of the game and represent our country to the best of our ability. (Note to editur – Hi editur. Is this the sort of thing you wanted right because you said put some jokes in if possible?????)

So what happened is I already spent some of the money – on a really good new haircut with extra gel and also on two new games for the Nintendo Wii – even though we haven’t won the money yet. KP got really mad with me, I never seen him so furious. Even more angry than when Jonny Wilkinson was voted ‘Most Marketable Non-Football Sportsman’ in that magazine article.

KP said I should never of spent the money if I didn’t have it and it was exactly this sort of irresponsibility and overconfidence that got us into the Credit Crisis in the first place. He storms out and I’m thinking: alright so I dropped my wallet on Broad Street in Birmingham a few weeks ago and I had to cancel my cards and everything and it was a right pain and that but I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a crisis as such. And how does he even know about Broad Street?

I was just sat there trying to work that out when he comes back in and he says that he’s been talking to Straussy because Straussy knows these posh lads that work in a bank, or at least they used to apparently. My Aunt Vicky used to work in a bank, sometimes we would go and see her on the way home from school. Or university. I wouldn’t mind working in a bank: smart uniform, plus sitting behind that glass screen, you could pretend you were on telly. Or a fish. I like fish.

Anyway Straussy says he has worked out this plan that he’s going to hold all the younger players’ money in a trust fund until we are old enough to spend it ourselves sensibly.

I says I don’t care what they do with it as long as they don’t repossesses my Nintendo Wii or try and take my hair. We better win this game now.

The pathological England Team diary stealer is Alan Tyers

Is Tendulkar the most overrated batsmen since Bradman?

I know what you are thinking, fair point Jrod, glad someone finally said it.

Scoring the most runs in Test history is impressive but it means you stuck around for a long time and could bat, I mean Boycott did it, so it can’t be that special.

It’s not that I don’t like Tendulkar – it’s just that, since the new millennium he has just been pretty good. Not great.

Definitely not God-like.

He was great in the 90s, oh how great he was, but in this millennium he was weighed down with the expectations of a nation, middle age, celebrity and chunky bats.

Statistically there is very little difference, from 89 to 99 he averaged 56, and from 2000 to now he averages 52.

But this isn’t about averages.

Watching Sachin in the 90s was like heaven – sticky sticky heaven.

In 1998 when he took Australia apart, he was like Genghis Khan, pure brutal elegance.

In 2004 he made a double hundred against Australia in which he put his cover drive away because it wasn’t working. It was like watching a dentist pull teeth, except without the cool teeth hitting-the-floor moments or lots of blood.

Every now and then old Sachin comes out, and it is glorious, but then the new one takes over and asks if you have any deductibles.

So does someone who is great in one millennium and pretty good in another deserve all the acclaim? Probably not, but if he doesn’t get it, people will have to acclaim Jacques Kallis.

As for Bradman, the Michael Hussey of his day, we all know that had he played in the 1940s more, his average would have dropped to 45.

Can you imagine watching Bradman, hitting the ball on the ground, playing it safe, and always making runs?

Boring.

Jrod is an Australian cricket blogger, his site Cricketwithballs.com won July’s Best of Blogs in TWC