Ian Bell
Ian Ronald Bell is an English former cricketer who played international cricket in all formats for the England cricket team and county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. A right-handed higher/middle order batsman, described in The Times as an "exquisite rapier," with a strong cover drive, Bell was also an occasional right-arm medium pace bowler and a slip fielder. He was also noted for his sharp reflexes and often fielded in close catching positions. He scored twenty-two Test centuries and four One Day International 100s.
In the 2006 New Year Honours List, Bell was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for his role in the successful Ashes campaign of 2005. In November 2006, he was awarded the Emerging Player of the Year award by the International Cricket Council. During 2008 and 2009, he was a more infrequent member of the England teams – however he reclaimed his Test place during the 2009 Ashes, which England won, and featured in several ODIs the following year. During 2010, he captained Warwickshire to victory in the CB40 final before scoring his first Ashes century the following winter as he helped England retain the Ashes down-under. Warwickshire County Cricket Club awarded Bell a benefit in 2011.
In July 2012, Bell signed a new three-year contract with Warwickshire extending his stay at the club at least till 2015. In November 2015, England selectors announced that Bell would be dropped from the English side ahead of the test series with South Africa. In August 2016, it was announced that Bell would be playing for the Perth Scorchers in the 2016–17 Big Bash League season. In August 2018, Bell scored his 20,000th run in first-class cricket. In September 2020, Bell announced his retirement, revealing that his final game for Warwickshire would be a T20 match against Glamorgan.
Education and early life
Bell's family hailed from Dunchurch, near Rugby and he played for the local cricket club as a junior. Bell was educated at Princethorpe College, a Roman Catholic independent school in the nearby village of Princethorpe and made the 1st XI in year 7. He also attended Coventry City's football school of excellence, despite being a supporter of Aston Villa, and played for Coventry and North Warwickshire Cricket Club. His brother Keith, born two years later, has played amateur cricket for Staffordshire, and has also played seven games for the Warwickshire Second XI.Early career
Bell made three appearances for Warwickshire's second team in 1998, his next matches at senior level were with the England Under-19 cricket team on their tour of New Zealand that winter. He made 91 in the first innings of the first Test, and 115 in the first innings of the third; Dayle Hadlee called Bell "the best 16-year-old I've ever seen", and he was often compared with former England captain Mike Atherton. Bell played in several more Under-19 series, captaining the team at home against Sri Lanka in 2000, in their 2000/01 tour of India, and for the first match at home against West Indies in 2001.By this time Bell had made his first-class debut, appearing in a single match for the Warwickshire first team in September 1999, but was out for a duck in his only innings and played no further part at that level until 2000/01, when he followed on from his Under-19 matches by playing for England A against the Leeward Islands in the Busta Cup tournament game in Anguilla.
Bell broke into the Warwickshire first-team in 2001 as he scored 836 runs in 16 innings including three centuries and two scores of 98. His first century, a score of 130 against Oxford UCCE, made him the county's youngest ever centurion at 19 years and 56 days. He also became the county's youngest capped player ever when Warwickshire awarded him a county cap on the final day of the season.
Bell was named in the first intake of the ECB National Academy who spent the 2001/02 winter in Australia. The day after he returned home from Adelaide he was brought into the full England Test squad to cover for the injured Mark Butcher on the New Zealand tour.
In 2002 Bell's four-day form fell away as he scored 658 at an average of 24.37 however he was instrumental in the county's Benson & Hedges Cup success. He top-scored in the Quarter-final, Semi-final and Final, the latter performance winning him the Gold Award in the last ever Benson & Hedges Cup final.
Bell's best form in 2003 once again came in the one-day format, he scored 779 runs at 28.85 in the County Championship compared to 560 runs at 43.07 in the National League, his best performance came at Chelmsford where he scored his maiden one-day century, 125 off 113 deliveries, as well as taking 5/41, his best one-day bowling figures. This was only the second time a Warwickshire player had achieved this feat.
After two poor seasons Bell was back to his best in 2004, he scored 1498 Championship runs which included six centuries. One of the six was a career-best 262 not out against Sussex; the innings lasting ten minutes short of ten hours made him the county's youngest ever double-centurion. In late July he began an impressive sequence of four centuries in five first-class innings, the other being a score of 96 not out. The centuries in both innings against Lancashire were the first by a Warwickshire batsman against an authentic attack since Brian Lara in 1994. This run of form led to him being brought into the England Test squad when Graham Thorpe was left doubtful with a finger injury.
International career
2004: West Indies
Bell made his international debut in the final match of the Test series against the West Indies at The Oval. He hit 70, batting at number five in England's first innings; he was not required to bat again as England forced the West Indies to follow on and won the game by ten wickets.2004/05: Zimbabwe and South Africa
Bell was selected as part of the squad to tour Zimbabwe and South Africa and he made his One Day International debut alongside Kevin Pietersen against Zimbabwe at Harare. Bell opened the innings and hit 75, which earned him his first ODI man-of-the-match award. He played all four matches of the series averaging 40.75. Although he was not chosen for any of the Tests against South Africa, he was selected for the first four of seven ODI matches but struggled, making 26 runs in three innings.2005: Bangladesh and The Ashes
In 2005, Bell enjoyed a superb start to the season, scoring 480 first-class runs in April alone to break Graeme Hick's 17-year-old record. He was recalled to the England team for the two-Test series against Bangladesh, however England's innings victories in both Tests allowed him only two innings. In the first Test at Lord's, Bell made 65 not out, and in the second at Chester-le-Street he scored 162 not out, in the process becoming the first Englishman since Leslie Ames in 1935 to score over 100 runs before lunch in a Test match.For the 2005 Ashes series, three players – Bell, Graham Thorpe and Kevin Pietersen – were in the running for two spots in the team, and Bell and Pietersen were preferred to Thorpe. Before the first Test at Lord's, Bell's test average was 297, rising to 303 just before he was out, the sixth highest average at any point of a player's career of all time. Bell failed in the first two matches, at Lord's and Edgbaston, but in the third Test at Old Trafford he overcame early struggles against Shane Warne to post a half-century in each innings. However, he only scored six runs in four innings in the fourth and fifth Tests, including a pair at the Oval, leaving him with a batting average for the series of only 17.10, by far the lowest of the English batsmen. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2006 New Year Honours. Despite England winning the Ashes back and being appointed MBE, Bell has since described the 2005 Ashes as a low point during which he doubted himself.
2005/06: Pakistan and India
Despite failing against Australia, he was included in the 17-man squad for the winter tour of Pakistan. There was speculation in the press that he would not be included in the Test team, but when Michael Vaughan was injured before the first Test, Bell got another opportunity. He took it, scoring a century and two half-centuries in the three-match series, and becoming England's top scorer in the series with 313 runs at an average of 52.16. He also took his only Test wicket with his part-time bowling when he caught and bowled Mohammad Yousuf.This form on the subcontinent continued on 18 February 2006 in England's first warm-up game prior to the Test series against India when Bell top-scored with 78 at Mumbai. He could not maintain this form into the Test series where, in 6 innings, he only scored 131 runs at an average of just under 22.
2006: Sri Lanka and Pakistan
After returning from India, Bell had an average start to the season with Warwickshire. He was named in the squad of 13 for the first home Test of the summer, against Sri Lanka, but with the return of Marcus Trescothick, coupled with the good form of Paul Collingwood and the emergence of Alastair Cook, Bell was dropped from the starting 11. Bell was selected in the squad for the 5 match ODI series against Sri Lanka, and was one of only a couple of players to come through the series with any credit.As a result of this, and the injury to Andrew Flintoff, Bell was recalled to the Test team for the first Test against Pakistan. After spending most of his career batting in the top four, he was asked to bat at number six. He scored a century in each of the first three Tests, becoming the first Englishman since Graham Gooch to score a century in three successive Test matches, but missed his chance to make it four in a row after scoring only 9 in the first innings and being 9 not out when the fourth Test unexpectedly finished a day early after the Pakistan ball tampering row. He finished the series with an average of 93.75, but surprisingly was not awarded the man-of-the-series award for England, with the honour going to Andrew Strauss who averaged 63.42. This run of form gave him an overall Test average of almost 48. Given his average against Australia was only 17, his average against all other sides was around 68. He also played in the ODI series against Pakistan, achieving his two highest scores at the time: 88 at Sophia Gardens and 86* at Trent Bridge, the latter earning him the man-of-the-match award following England's victory.