AUSTRALIA players gathering back home for their boot camp cum Ashes briefing will make a big mistake if they overlook the name of Ian Bell.
They could easily do so if they simply recall the young batsman who looked out of place last year. But 11 months on, Bell has developed a confidence that has taken him to the brink of an England record.
If he reaches three figures against Pakistan in the fourth npower Test at the Brit Oval starting tomorrow he will equal the achievement of Ken Barrington in scoring hundreds in four successive Test matches, after his 100 not out at Lord’s, 106 not out at Old Trafford and 119 at Headingley Carnegie. Barrington did it twice, in 1961-62 and 1967-68.
For Bell, the sequence represents an emphatic turnaround after being dropped for the series against Sri Lanka only three months ago. From being a stand-in for Andrew Flintoff at Lord’s, he is in line to start in the Ashes at Brisbane on November 23, no matter that he bagged a pair at the end of the 2005 affair.
“I hope it is a different player they encounter,” Bell said. “I have had more experience, I will go there with 18 or 19 Tests behind me instead of three. They will see somebody who feels he can play at this level. This is a big Test match for us because it is the last before we go to Australia and I want to keep scoring runs.”
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Bell resembled a boy among men when he walked out to face his one and only ball of the England second innings at the Oval last September. His dismissal — caught Shane Warne bowled Glenn McGrath — symbolised the way in which two of the most forthright players on the international circuit had gradually undermined his game.
Alec Stewart, his agent, suggested that Bell harden his body language. Stewart never appeared beaten, even with all three stumps removed, and while Bell is not quite as brazen, he does look opponents in the eye to show that he belongs in their company. “I go out there with my chest out. I believe in myself,” he said.
Bell believes that his fluent hundred at Old Trafford was the best innings of his career. Few would disagree, but despite being in such good touch, he is trying not to think about emulating Barrington. “It is better to expect it not to happen,” he said. “You can’t face your first ball thinking about a hundred. You have to be in the present.”
In Australia, they are thinking of the future. Brett Lee cut a cake yesterday to mark 100 days before the start of the Ashes. He is now heading for Coolum on the Sunshine Coast, where contracted players are to meet before their three-day trip into the Queensland Bush for what is described as a “commando-style camp”.
Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach, said that Shoaib Akhtar will not play at the Oval, but he suggested that either or both of Mohammad Asif and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan may feature, despite arriving only on Monday night. “They bowled well in practice,” Woolmer said. “When it was overcast, the ball went everywhere.”
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Salman Butt, Taufiq Umar and Samiullah Niazi have returned home and Imran Farhat and Hafeez Mohammad are likely to form the fourth opening partnership of the series. With one-day players now in the country, the party numbers 19, although Woolmer did have to check.
“It is controlled chaos,” he said.