After a chastening tour of the UAE, where he averaged just 8.50 in the Test series, he had managed just 34 runs in his first three Championship innings of the season. In 16 of his last 20 first-class innings, he has failed to reach 20 and this may well prove his final first-class knock ahead of the first Test at Lord's. His confidence, understandably, had diminished.

He was not, perhaps, at his most fluent for the first half of this innings. He was dropped twice - on 51 and 59 - and survived a very confident leg-before appeal from Mitchell Claydon when he had 61.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2012/content/current/story/563644.html

As a punter it's going to take a lot more than this one-off innings to convince me the popular midget hasn't gone at the game. You don't fail as consistently and abysmally as he has for the last 8 months, then suddenly become Test-class thanks to a couple of dropped catches.

Good match for Bell. Coming in with England in a bit of bother 4 down he secures victory with a high class unbeaten half century.

you must be off your rocker screaming, he can't be at fault for the fact windies have no back up bowlers, i suppose it's his fault as well that he averaged over 100 last summer. And is suppose those runs he scored away in Aus the winter before last and away in SA must have also have been pretty soft. What a load of codswollop!

There's not a team in the world that wouldn't want to be "lumbered" with Ian Ronald Bell.

he gets runs when everyone else doesn't and it's cos the bowling is sh*te and he gets runs when everyone else does and it's cos the bowling is sh*te, well obviously there's a lot of crap bowling around at the moment so therefore all of the engalnd batsman must be rubbish.

oh for the days when we didn't have someone as bad as ian bell batting at number 5. mark ramprakash perhaps ?

I forgot to mention that Bell was nailed on to get runs vs windies this summer.  If he gets some serious runs v saffers this summer then i'll take everything back, but somehow I just know he won't, not if he's under any pressure.  If we (and it's not beyond the realms of possibility) do thrash the saffers like we did india last summer then i've no doubt he'll score heavily, but if it's a real ding dong battle then i doubt he will.  Nothing against the guy, he's just a blatant bottler, don't know why anyone would deny it - and I'm as patriotic as the next england fan.

well it is subjective wurzel so what facts exactly could disprove my point so fantastically?  The only way to truly analyse him would be to go through every innings in his career and somehow rate each innings in terms of how well he did in relation to the pressure of the situation (which of course would be subjective in itself) and then compare that to a similar rating of his peers, I am too lazy to do this so you're right in that sense, still think he's a bottler mind, anyway i did mention about south africa and i think this thread has come up with about 3 decent innnigs, perhaps 4, under pressure.  I said that wasn't much of a return over his career - especially when compared to kp, trott and cook, and probably strauss too.  So I've listened and maintained my original stance.  He is mentally weak under pressure imo - why does it hurt people so much to say that out loud, it is blindingly obvious imo.  I've nothing against him at all.

No one accuses Strauss, Trott and KP of bottling it in the last Test, because they were facing a fired-up Roach, Fiddy and Gabriel.

Bell faced Sammy and Samuels for all bar 4 balls.

Composed 50 from Bell after coming in with the side under pressure at 49 for 3.

Bell certainly isn't going to dropped anytime soon - will be interested to see how he goes.

none

100.3
Kallis to Bell, no run, 125.6 kph, outside off, this one doesn't swing and it's left
100.4
Kallis to Bell, OUT, 124.2 kph, gone! He's left it and been bowled. Wonderful set-up by Kallis. After the outswing he brings one back into Bell who shoulders arms and the ball brushes the off bail with just enough force to dislodge it. South Africa initially appeal for lbw before realising it was bowled.
IR Bell b Kallis 13 (56b 2x4 0x6) SR: 23.21

Just as predicted. Gift him cheap runs against the W Indies to ensure he keeps his place, and this is how he rewards you.

Typically weak and gutless dismissal from the ridiculous dwarf when his team needs him.

When t

When the going gets tough Bell is nowhere to be seen.

A good player when you are on top but rarely performs when your backs are up against the wall.

Bottling Brummie Bellend

18.3
Philander to Bell, OUT, 129.2 kph, gone! Smith juggled it but held on at the second attempt. Bell flashing away outside off stump to a back-of-a-length delivery and the top flies towards first slip where it jumps out Smith's hands but he stays calm and grabs the rebound
IR Bell c Smith b Philander 4 (37b 0x4 0x6) SR: 10.81

Just how incompetent is a management team that manages to lose Trescothick and Pietersen, yet stands by Strauss and Bell?

Bellis a fkin bottler.  Pathetic.

Only bright spot is the mi**** Midlands midget already having bottled out of the 2nd Test to attend a birth.

Cricinfo: Bell's first-ball dismissal was mental frailty dressed up as aggressive intent, an attempt to dance down the wicket to strike Ojha down the ground ending in a mis-hit off the bottom of the bat to Sachin Tendulkar at mid-off. To call it rabbit-in-the-headlights stuff was an insult to rabbits. It has yet to be proved that a rabbit sits in its burrow proclaiming: "I am going to be a tough rabbit, I am going to be an adventurous rabbit. I have no idea about the speed of the car or the lie of the road, I am going to take on this car from the start, come what may." Or maybe they do and they are the ones that get splattered.

Would have been more use to England if he had missed the flight back to India!

Sorry Bell you are hopeless on the sub continent