Against Ian Bell's Promotion

I do feel like I'm repeating a bit of a cliche now, but I am getting pretty frustrated with Bell.

He has been a fixture in the England side for the best part of four years, so surely he's past the probationary period of "has all the shots and talent to be very good". He should be very good now, and the fact that he hasn't really moved on much in the last 18 months is be a big concern for me. The reason that I and others get so down on Bell is that he never delivers consistently. Never has done for the Test side.

Let's look at his recent record:

vs SA: 199, 31, 4, 50, 20, 24 and 4

The 199 came in a match where 6 other players scored hundreds, and the game was a dead duck draw on a superb batting track.

When he got out for 50, he was the last full batsman there and his dismissal condemned us to a massively sub-par score - look at what an extra 70 runs with Flintoff could have done in the context of the game. He let the pressure get to him and underperformed when we needed him most.

vs NZ (home): 16, 8, 21*, 0

Nuff said.

vs NZ (away): 25, 54*, 11, 41, 9, 110

The 54* was a pretty knock with no pressure on in a totally lost cause.

The 110 was a good knock, but as junior partner to Strauss, and half of those runs were made once NZ were effectively out of the game.

It may sound like I'm running him down a bit, but can you point me to a single knock he's played where we have won or saved a game as a result?

Like Ambrose's 102 in Wellington, the only 3-figure score that game.

Or KP's 129 in Napier, which was over half our runs that innings.

Or Vaughan's 106 at Lord's, which was the only reason we were able to post a lead after collapsing from 121-0 to 208-6.

OR KP's 115 in the deciding Test at Trent Bridge, which rescued us from 86-5 and was again the only century in the entire match?

I cannot summon to mind a single one where Bell has put his hand up in a tough spot and been the only beacon of light in the darkness.

Equally, since the Ashes, he has made only 3 centuries, and only converts 27% of fifties into 100s (KP converts 80%). If you take out WI and NZ, that figure falls to 1 with a conversion rate of just 14% (KP's is still 80%).

Now he's not the only one to have conversion problems, but we've just promoted this guy to number 3, to the place where you need big hundreds to come from.

I can't shake the impression that Bell is a fair-weather player. There ain't going to be much fair weather against India or the Aussies. So I'd rather have a gritty, mentally tough but unorthodox player like Shah there rather than someone who goes missing when the pressure's on.

I would bracket Bell with two other great batsmen, Hick and Ramprakash. I think the comparisons there are a bit too close for comfort.