Ian Bell: wants to bat at three
The Ian Bell interview continued
On the one hand, his Test conversion ratio of fifties to hundreds needs to improve if he is to hold down the coveted number three spot. He is no longer the young kid chipping away at number six, but one of the main men, with the unique and central responsibility of batting at first drop. Flowery seventies don’t cut it at three, only hundreds really convince. In his last eight overseas Tests Bell has made seven fifties but no centuries. But the counter-argument contends that these scores show he can make regular runs against the best attacks, and that the fundamental qualities are all in place.
Bell is well aware what needs to be done. “Coming away from Australia last winter having scored four fifties in the series, obviously I was disappointed that we got hammered five-nil and disappointed that I didn’t score a hundred, but inside there was a bit of me thinking, ‘I can do this’. I had played well enough to score hundreds but I didn’t quite convert. I think that’s been how I’ve played over the last 12 months, I’m doing the business and getting the runs but not converting quite enough. You look at the Ricky Pontings and guys like that, [they are] players who literally convert every other time.”
But it must be tough having to draw comparisons with the most prolific batsman since Bradman? “People generally believe I’m a good player and hopefully a player who’s going to play for England for a long time. I think that’s the point. It’s how I see myself. Certainly if I’m around at the age of Ponting and Sangakkara [the world’s other great number three], that’s the position I’ll hopefully be in then, converting regularly and with people seeing me as a world-class number three.
“Obviously I’ve still got a bit to do but I’m learning and I think the best place to do it is batting at three. You learn, make mistakes, but hopefully when the time comes and I get to that age in the next two, three, four years, then I can be paying back, converting and all the lessons that you learnt as a young player batting at three will pay off.
“It’s pretty much unique,” he says. “You could be going in second ball or you could be going in the last session of the day. You need to be able to be versatile and have the flexibility in your game to start against spin, to start against the new ball or against the reverse swing boys. You have to be able to cope with anything, that’s the thing about batting at number three. Openers you see as the guys who face the newer ball to start with, or the guys who bat lower six or seven, decent players of spin. Number three and four are guys who can be pretty versatile and start against anything.”
I ask him if he knows where he’ll bat against New Zealand. Strauss is possibly back to open, and Vaughan, a brilliant opener himself, has always liked first wicket down. “Not just yet, hopefully three still. I thought I had done enough from Sri Lanka to say that I’ll bat there. I’m desperate to bat at three.” Bell knows what he wants and is desperate to get it. It’s good to know.
It’s a big year for England. The phrase ‘transitional period’ – that hollow euphemism for ‘we’re losing’ – has been bandied about lately. With three series defeats in the last four, the reality is that the team needs to go to New Zealand and win, and win well, to prevent serious questions being asked, not just by the media but by the public at large. But is that reasonable? Bell’s guarded. “I guess so,” he says uneasily. “I think the importance is probably over the long term, in terms of us trying to build for 2009 Ashes. Certainly we realised that when Australia lost the Ashes in 2005, that all their Test matches were geared towards regaining them two years later.”
Finally I ask him why, when people talk about future England captains, his name is rarely mentioned. “I don't really know, to be honest. I captained all the England under 19s and did a lot of captaincy when I was young. Any chance to be captain of your country you'd love too if the time was right. I did it with the England ‘A’ tour just after I made my debut, so I enjoyed captaincy and all the stuff that went with it.”
A fortnight later, bang on cue, Peter Moores talks up Bell’s potential as a leader. "We've got two or three decent options within the side," said Moores. "We've got people like Ian Bell, who has captained under 19s and is potentially a captain. He has a very good tactical cricket brain.”
The full interview can be read in this month's copy of ALL Out Cricket magazine
Discuss the tour of New Zealand.
14 February 2008
