What are your thoughts on Ian Bell?

Question

I believe that Bell has great skill and technique and is consistently among our leading run scorers in a series, nevertheless people easily forget the times he scores runs when the rest of our batting fails. Okay he probably doesn’t convert his scores into hundreds often enough however his place is always under threat after a couple of low scores whereas KP has a poor year yet is classed as undroppable.

But somehow this has been transformed into a belief that Bell never performs under pressure, which isn’t true. How about his 115 coming in at 39/2 against Pakistan at Faisalabad in 2005? His 92 coming in at 30/2 in the 2nd innings at Lahore in the same series? His 97 coming in at 132/4 against the West Indies at Old Trafford? His 87 coming in at 0/1 in the second innings against Australia at Perth? Or even his 2 50's in the draw with India at the Oval last year? It appears to me that the media and fans seem to have short memories as far as Bell is concerned.

What are your views? :)

Answer 1

he is a fantastic player no doubt abt that. he is one of the under rated players.

Answer 2

gr8 player....good records...future star of england.

Answer 3

Talented Lad!

Answer 4

he os good players but has not gone to next level

Answer 5

to speak from an Aussies point of view, we've only seen him in 2 Ashes series and while we could all see he was a good player, we never saw the best of him when he was playing us, we've all seen his stats and no doubt they say he is a good player, but he hasnt produced his best againist australia and that would be why we perhaps havent rated him as highly as we probably should, but as far as the english not rating him, i wouldnt have a clue why he not being rated highly because hes made alot of runs for you guys, sure hes no Pietersen or Vaughan, but hes still been in the runs hasnt he!

EDIT: OI!! Kookee, that suck up act is my trick!! get your own!!!

Answer 6

I think technically, Ian Bell is our best batsman. He has a sound technique, and knows where his off stump is. Much of the criticism he receives is unfair: he always seems to be under pressure for his place, and a run of poor or indifferentr form prompt calls for him to be axed.

Bell suffers from a number of problems in the England setup. Firstly, he is unsure of his position in the batting order. Currently he is batting at five, but he has batted at both three and six. He even opened on one occasion in India a couple of years back.

Secondly, his speed of scoring. Although no slouch, he does not have the power to batter bowling attacks into submission.  His strike rate is currently 50.17 per 100 balls. No tortoise, but no hare either. As England's top three are steady rather than spectacular scorers, and Collingwood being more of an accumulator, this places a heavy emphasis on Pietersen and Bell to up the scoring rate. Fine for KP, but it isn't in Bell's nature. I don't think the speed of his scoring would be as much of a question if he was an opener.

Thirdly, Bell suffers from his reputation. He was being talked up for greatness as a sixteen year old. Far too young. Casting my mind back to when I was that age, I would not have been able to cope with that pressure of expectation (not that any was placed on me!), so you can only imagine what this has done to Bell. Since leaving school, he has had the mantle of being the next big thing to carry around on his shoulders. Imagine having that, and trying to cope with everything else that life throws at you when you are in your teens and early twenties. Is it any wonder his game dropped for a while?

People forget Bell is still a young man. He only turned 26 last month. Many batsmen don't mature until their mid to late twenties. It is often stated that a batsman's best years are when he is aged between 28 and 32. So Bell's best years are still to come.

What needs to be done with him is to give him a settled berth in England's middle order. They seem to be settling on number five. I think this is a good position for him, as he comes in behind Pietersen, the two bat well together, and also have complimenting styles.

Bell does need to be more assertive with his mannerism at the crease. He needs to show that he feels he belongs there. There were signs of that during the last Australian tour, where he took a lot of abuse from the Aussies, Warne in particular.

And you are right: Bell does perform under pressure. His performances during the winter were awful, he did only score runs when the pressure was off: but at least he scored some runs! Generally, Bell stands up to the challenge. I want to see how he performs against South Africa, as their pace attack will certainly test his technique, concentration and resolve. If he can do well against them, then I think it will give him the belief to take his career onto new heights.

I predict Ian Bell will finish his Test career with an average in excess of 50, and will score at least 8,000 runs.

Answer 7

no doubt bell is a great player.

Answer 8

As i know how much you love Bell maybe if i say Ian Bell was the greatest thing since slice bread, i might get the best answer right??? haha

You pointed out (rather well) all the times there when Bell performed in pressure situations!!. First point to make from that is every knock you mentioned was not a 100!! and secondly every knock (but one) you mentioned that Bell contributed in England still lost or drew. This proves to me that Bell is not a match-winner. The difference between Bell and WORLD class batsmen, is that one of the knocks mentioned wouldnt just be a fantastic 50, but a match winning big 100 or 200!!! So my point is that Bell may bat well in tough conditions, but he doesnt win matches in tough conditions!!

Another point about Ian Bell is his conversation rate in test and ODI's

Tests- 7/18

ODI's 1/14

This stat proves that Ian Bell is a liability for the England side, too many times England get into winning positions in test and ODI cricket, only for a set batsmen to throw away his wicket!!. For Bell to start being recognised as one of the best he needs to grind down and start making BIG 100's not stylish 50's!!

Bell is at his best is up there with Vaughan and Kallis as one of the most aesthetically pleasing batsmen in the world!! He has a very standard (English) technique!!. He has a lot of potential to be a batsmen who scores a ton of test and ODI runs!!

Does Bell have the bottle for test cricket, well in 2005 it looked like he didnt BUT times have changed!!. Bell's attitude is pleasing to see. I like the fact that he often charges the bowlers in ODI cricket!! 3 or 4 years Bell would have never though about doing that!!. The 2005 Ashes really seemed to toughen him up.

The future is bright for Bell, he needs a consisent spot in the England batting line-up though (5 or 6). He also needs to start making some runs for England to lessen the pressure!!.

The bad thing for Bell is that, when the England team (or the batting line-up) is failing, Bell's name seems to be the first name mentioned to be dropped!!. Its strange to see why batsmen like KP, Collingwood, Vaughan and Cook's names are never mentioned!!.

Answer 9

He seems to be a fairly good player, so I don't know why he would be looked on as overrated.

Answer 10

Great player, and is probably one of England's best at batting under pressure. Over the last 2 summers, he's probably been England's most consistant. Whilst he, like you say, needs to convert more 50's into big 100's, seldom does a series go by where he doesn't contribute something to the team performance. May I add to your list of performances under pressure his 74 V Sri Lanka last December. Although we lost, his and Matt Prior's partnership of 109 (When Prior came in England were 139-6) nearly drew the test, failing by all of half an hour.

Why is he so underrated? It is probably his poor conversion rate.

Answer 11

with the standard of attacks today most good batsmen should average well over 50 -he needs to become more consistent in converting his good starts to a hundred / more-great is a word used too often -guys like richards, bradman , sobers , pollock can be classified as great -just look at the attacks that they faced-add lara , tendulkar