Not a lot separates Ian Bell’s numbers (44 Tests, 2947 runs, average 41.50, eight hundreds) from Paul Collingwood’s (40 Tests, 2806 runs, average 42.51, seven hundreds). But in practice they are a world apart – and Chennai was faithful to the rule. Bell failed twice under pressure (sure, he got two good balls: this is Test cricket), while Collingwood scored a hundred that ought to have paved the way for an England win. As distillations of the two men’s careers go, this seemed perfect.
Bell will be 27 by the time the new English summer starts. It is more than four years since he began his Test career with an assured 70 against West Indies at The Oval. Yet he still seems determined to fulfil Stuart Law’s assessment of him as “that timid little creature”. Since apparently coming of age as a Test batsman with 199 against South Africa at Lord’s, he has made one fifty in eight innings. He is in danger of wasting the investment England have placed in him. Whisper it, but he is in danger of becoming a 21st-century Graeme Hick: always gifted, occasionally glorious, maddeningly frail.
When it comes to pure batsmanship, Bell’s gilded cover-driving and defensive solidity leaves Collingwood’s leg-side nudges and concrete foot movement for dead. But cricket, we are always reminded, is played as much in the mind as it in the middle, and not enough of Bell’s big runs have come when England really needed them. The list looks something like this: three good innings in Pakistan in late 2005; 87 at Perth in 2006; 97 against West Indies at Old Trafford in 2007; 110 at Napier in 2008; and that 199 (even then, you wondered why he didn’t just nudge Paul Harris round the corner for that extra single). It is not exactly exhaustive.
Collingwood, by contrast, is England’s mini-Steve Waugh, a player at his best when there is a hole in a dyke to plug. His 135 against South Africa at Edgbaston when he was just one failure away from being dropped was a masterpiece of self-preservation. His 108 at Chennai was sheer guts, if a touch slow towards the end. Yet the lack of aestheticism in his play means he never seems to be far from the chop.
Put simply, if Bell wants to play for England well into his 30s, he needs to sit down with Collingwood and discuss the art of making ugly runs. If he doesn’t, Owais Shah will get his chance sooner rather than later – possibly as soon as Friday morning in Mohali. Many chats with Bell last year revealed a desire to turn himself into England’s Ricky Ponting: the classy linchpin at No. 3 who dictates the course of matches. But Ponting is a unique talent, perhaps an inimitable one. Surely a better role model is Mahela Jayawardene, who barely got out of second gear while taking England for 195 and 213 not out in Colombo and Galle a year ago. Bell needs remorseless 150s, not glittering 70s.
He also needs to stop worrying about appearances. In the first game of that Sri Lanka series, he very nearly cracked it. But the end felt all too familiar. In the first innings his beautiful 83 was ruined when he decided to go down the track to Muttiah Muralitharan and was caught at short midwicket with Sri Lanka’s bowlers at his mercy. In the second he all but saved the game with Matt Prior before missing a ball delivered from round the wicket from Murali that he probably should have kept out. So very agonising. So very Bell.
We all want Bell to succeed. England need his experience when Australia visit next summer. But where is the line drawn? If Collingwood can get into his head, we might, finally, be able to stop asking the question.
Lawrence Booth writes on cricket for the Guardian. His third book, Cricket, Lovely Cricket? An Addict’s Guide to the World’s Most Exasperating Game is out now published by Yellow Jersey
