Why is Bell playing for England?

[Grendel]

Go and check Freddies figures in his first 10 tests. See how good he was then.

True, but at the time I was criticising him too.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Why are people obsessed with having a gritty player who can drop anchor/stay put?

The Aussies have shown over the last 10-15 years (and it was suitably demostrated by Pieterson), if you start scoring runs, that is a much, much better way of getting out of a tight spot than dropping anchor. OK, there may be the odd extreme when you need to scrore 500+ over 6 sessions to win, but hey, that's so rare anyway.

If Bell is thought to be good enough by the selectors, then let him have time. After all, the selectors haven't done a bad job over the last few years have they. The same ones harping on about Thorpe were the same ones that didn't want Pieterson. Nuff said really.

Regarding a gritty player it just gives the side a bit of balance. At the end of the day how many of the current crop would you back to stick around for 9 or 10 hours like Atherton did in South Africa during the 95/96 series to save a game?

 

[CHAPPERS]

Ok, put it another way - one of our so called specialist batsmen has a lower series batting average than Ashley Giles. Is this a good thing?

That's an unfair question.

Not for Bell but for Gilo it's a bloody good thing.

 

[Pevenseagull]

..................... The one worry with Englands batting is that we do not seem to have an obvious gritty player who can drop anchor ................

Michael Howard Yardy!

he got an even bigger score than Bell against Bangladesh

he's becoming something of a useful spinner

most of all, he bats UGLY

 

[Uncle Buck]

Michael Howard Yardy!

he got an even bigger score than Bell against Bangladesh

he's becoming something of a useful spinner

most of all, he bats UGLY

Well we shall see on that front. He should get onto the Academy this year and then go from there.

There have been a couple of times this summer (yesterday and the Sunday at Trent Bridge in particular) where a cool head like Thorpe or Butcher would have been just the ticket in this situations where it looked like it might go all wrong. Although the Wheelie Bin is reinventing himself as a drop anchor batsman, who can bowl a bit...

 

[Storer68]

And this time last year Key must have thought that he had cemented a place in the England side after his doub le century at Lords v West indies. And the Aussies seem to rate him as well

Bell is a very good player who has the ability but also seems to have an unfortunate knack of attracting really good balls from top bowlers (his dismissal by Lee springs to mind)

then there's Ed Smith, Ed Joyce, Owais Shah, David Sales, mal Love, david Hemp

 

[Scoffers]

Bell is a very good player who has the ability but also seems to have an unfortunate knack of attracting really good balls from top bowlers (his dismissal by Lee springs to mind)

I guess that's because he bats at No 4 when and often faces a relatively new ball.

I reckon if they stick with him, he'll come good