England in West Indies

[King Pietersen]

and I explained that Bell's proven far more than Ramprakash ever did in his Test career. An average of over 40 is far better than an average of 27. Bell's a class player, and he will prove you all wrong. Mark my words, Bell will come back after this rest from the team and score big. We won't win the Ashes without him, he's got a fantastic record in England. Lets have a look at the stats for runs in the first innings at home for the top 6:

Alastair Cook: 1070 runs at an average of 50
Andrew Strauss: 1461 runs at an average of 41
Ian Bell: 1369 runs at an average of 65
Kevin Pietersen: 1540 runs at an average of 59
Paul Collingwood: 849 runs at an average of 40
Andrew Flintoff: 1241 runs at an average of 39

Bell's clearly ahead of everyone else in the top order, even has a better record in England's first innings than Pietersen. You may claim that runs in the 2nd innings are the important ones as they can ultimately win the game, but it's the first innings that sets the tone for the Test and can put you in a dominant position, and unless the stats lie, there's no-one better than that in the England team.

Personally I'd keep Cook in my team, but only if he can start scoring hundreds. Getting to 50 and getting out doesn't really help anyone. If all the top 6 did that you'd only get to 300 every innings, which isn't enough. I don't think Bell at the top would be too bad an idea, although I've made my point in the past about choosing Bell over Collingwood. I just don't particularly rate Paul Collingwood tbh. His record in the stats above is only marginaly better than Flintoff's! Ideally my team would be:

Strauss
Cook
Shah
Pietersen
Bell
Flintoff
Prior

But if Cook continues to get starts and get out, then he'll have to be dropped in the same way that Bell has now.

200 up for England as well Slightly better than our last batting effort

 

[Themer]

Come to think of it I had reservations about him being 3 at first but come to think of it he's perfect for the job and is a naturally aggressive player which compliments either Cook or Strauss depending on whom gets out first.

 

[Mercules]

Last 50 came off just 57 balls, this partnership is going very well.

 

[Dare]

Gayle using Hinds allot. He needs to bring on Taylor, see if he can reverse the ball a bit.

Good stuff from England, scoring at a good rate and at 206/1 atm, well set.

 

[The_gas]

Impressive batting from England on a great deck. Still have a feeling we can collapse and be all out for 210 though.

Strauss is playing beautifully even though he rode his luck a little at times.

 

[wolf]

Shah looks very, very good and I would love him to get a hundred and stick one finger up to the selectors who have ingnored him for so long. He looks a complete natural against spin as well. Typical Strauss innings as well mixing some good shots around the wicket with a bit of luck.

 

[Leicester Fox]

ok king_bell, now you have hit a new low. Bell is nowhere near the best batsmen in the England side. he isn't even in the England side.

So what if he averages 65 in the first innings of test matches. That is no doubt boosted by the fact he scored 199 against an undercooked south African attack on an absolute road, after which he failed to captialise on his good form once again demonstrating his lack of mental ability, and by easy runs against Bangladesh.

We don't only play cricket in the first innings at home anyway, that's a nonsense statistic which just hides his ineptness when the going gets tough. In fact it's the cricket away from home which really shows how good a player you are.

 

[Sureshot]

Those must be some of the most mis-leading cricket stats I've seen in a while.

It wasn't that long ago I thought Straussy's career was over, well done that man!

 

[Deleted member 11215]

The second innings is when we're up against it and thats when bell gets out. Find me some stats showing his contribution to all our scores under 400 in our last 6 innings at home and ill start to get convinced.

 

[King Pietersen]

Oh right, so lets just ignore his innings against the current best side in the world just because they were a little undercooked. He scored the runs, he outscored Pietersen on that wicket. I'm not saying Bell's the best batsman in the side, because that's obvious that he's not. But as far as runs in England are concerned, he's up there. The Ashes are the important thing for me, and Bell's record in England cannot surely be ignored? You can moan as much as you like about him being a bottler, but the fact is, he's scored runs at this level, and has a very decent record but has just been in a bad place mentally in the past few months. He'll come through that, and when he does, he's a shoe in for the side. As I said a few posts back, he will prove you all wrong. =D

The second innings is when we're up against it and thats when bell gets out. Find me some stats showing his contribution to all our scores under 400 in our last 6 innings at home and ill start to get convinced.

Not sure how to find those stats. But Bell's home record in matches England have won sits at:

21 innings, 749 runs at an average of 46.81 with 3 hundreds and 3 fifties, and he's only played 7 innings in England's 2nd innings, so those stats are pretty harsh to base him on. Especially considering he batted at 5 or 6 in most of those innings, and he's only played 10 innings in matches won if you include the ones away from home, averaging 23, which although is far from impressive, does include a hundred and only 3 innings batting in the top 4.

Also, Bell doesn't score runs in England losses. 11 fifties and 0 hundreds, proving surely how important his runs are to the side? Only 4 of his hundreds have come in draw's as well, showing that he does score hundreds to lead to England wins. Everytime Bell scores a hundred, England avoid defeat, or that's how his career's gone thus far. His conversion rate in draws and wins is very good as well, only scoring 1 extra fifty to hundreds, so almost a 50% conversion rate, which is very good going.

 

[Highlander999]

Nice start by Shah to the evening session Also Dan. You are now becoming worse than some Indians are with Yuvraj/Sachin (who have actually performed) with Bell (who hasn't performed)

 

[Simbazz]

Hang on, I've not read this much, but Dan, lets stop the "Bell is God," thing. He's purely out of form, much like Panesar. He's undoubtably a talant, but at the moment, Shah is ahead of him. Owais Shah is better in my opinion.

 

[Slowcoach]

Good to see Strauss doing well, as I have said before, I think he is England's best option as far as captaincy goes, he is level headed, and he has shown before and is showing again that captaincy doesn't effect his performance with the bat.

His limited overs record is pretty good, much better than Michael Vaughan's, and it is time England got serious and started picking their best XI instead of stuffing around with players like Cook and Wright in the one day matches. He is definately better than those two, so he is worth his place in the ODI team.

If I was an England fan I wouldn't get my hopes up too high about the Ashes, even though Australia have slipped in the rankings recently I still think they are a better team than England, watch out for McGain, he will surprise some people.

England's test form since the 2005 Ashes has been dreadful, they have hardly won a series of note. They have only won 4 Test series since then, 2 were unconvincing wins against a very weak New Zealand team, one was against an underprepared and out of form West Indies, and the other against an injury ravaged Pakistan team.

 

[Deleted member 11215]

Oh right, so lets just ignore his innings against the current best side in the world just because they were a little undercooked. He scored the runs, he outscored Pietersen on that wicket. I'm not saying Bell's the best batsman in the side, because that's obvious that he's not. But as far as runs in England are concerned, he's up there. The Ashes are the important thing for me, and Bell's record in England cannot surely be ignored? You can moan as much as you like about him being a bottler, but the fact is, he's scored runs at this level, and has a very decent record but has just been in a bad place mentally in the past few months. He'll come through that, and when he does, he's a shoe in for the side. As I said a few posts back, he will prove you all wrong. =D



Not sure how to find those stats. But Bell's home record in matches England have won sits at:

21 innings, 749 runs at an average of 46.81 with 3 hundreds and 3 fifties, and he's only played 7 innings in England's 2nd innings, so those stats are pretty harsh to base him on. Especially considering he batted at 5 or 6 in most of those innings, and he's only played 10 innings in matches won if you include the ones away from home, averaging 23, which although is far from impressive, does include a hundred and only 3 innings batting in the top 4.

Problem is we dont need a man who can get a big score once a year. We need someone who's chipping in with 50-100 7/10 times and he just doesnt have the consistancy. Bell will never make it as one of the greats and will always been known as the one that got away and you can quote me on that.

 

[Leicester Fox]

Well for a start the whole attitude of looking forward to the ashes is what is responsible for us being so crap in the first place. The last time we actually concentrated on winning each series put in front of us and not bulding a team we won the ashes.

Hell this guy who is supposedly such a gun in England completely failed us in the last ashes series and was carried by the side. In fact Ashley Giles batted better than he did.

You can't just say he scores loads of runs, that's nonsense. For a start since his last century he averages 19, he's meant to hit form not get worse. He's just not good enough. Very much doubt he ever will be.