Before the start of the Ashes series, the English batting was supposed to revolve around the big three i.e. Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott. Nobody was thinking about Ian Bell. He had a poor series against New Zealand and he was going into the Ashes under a bit of pressure. But, the way he has batted in the first 4 matches is just incredible. It would not be an overstatement to say that he has made all the difference in the series.
He has had 3 three figure scores in the series and all of them have come in pressure situations. In the first test match, the score of England was 121 for 3 in the second innings when Bell walked out to bat. The hosts were ahead by just 56 runs at that time as Australia had taken a lead of 65 runs in the first innings.
That was a very important stage in the game. Someone needed to play a big knock for England and Bell was the man for them. He played a classy knock of 109 and helped England extend their lead to 310 which proved to be a match winning total at the end.
Bell’s second hundred came in the second test match which was played at Lord’s. England was in a spot of bother again after losing 3 early wickets in the first innings. But, Bell stabilized the ship for them. With another terrific hundred; he took England to a decent total in the first innings.
Bell got his third hundred of the series in the 4th test match which was played at Durham. That was the series winning knock. On a difficult pitch where the ball was seaming viciously, he played some extraordinary shots in the second innings. It’s only because of his effort that England managed to post a decent target in front of the Australian team and won the match eventually.
Bell has so far scored 500 runs in the series with an average of more than 70.