Belly Up
As England's World Cup comes to a miserable end, I feel compelled to consider the case of one of the players people are suggesting should be consigned to England's ODI past as soon as possible to make way for the bright new technique-free talents out there.
Ian Bell's the England player of the last 10 years I've most wished well for and whose successes I've enjoyed the most. I came across him on a cricket tour to the Midlands when I was about 15 and he'd have been about 11. I don't think I played in the game, I think I was just scorer, so I was able to hear the opposition players talk about this tiny kid with high regard. He'd apparently scored 200 the week before. This game was an Under-18 game and he was about half the size of some of the players, but he easily, calmly made 30* and I thought I'd look out for him in future.
It was no surprise when his name started to come up as a future star in his late teens, he made his England test debut vs West Indies in 2004, made an easy 70 and then got out a little unexpectedly
(plus ca change, you say ...)
The next summer, 2005, can be seen to define public perception of him and the issues that have dogged him his whole career. Two tests vs Bangladesh and five vs Australia. The last time tests were on terrestrial TV so, possibly, a lot of his critics had their opinion of him set in stone then.
Moving forward, Bell has ended this World Cup with over 250 runs at an average of over 50, strike rate 77. Yes, but he's got out just when he should have pushed on, yes but that's too slow, he's representative of the old style of cricket etc ... Bell, though hardly ever seemingly like a settled fixture in England's one-day set up, and regularly shuffled around the order, is now England's record run scorer in ODIs. His average and his strike rate are both perfectly decent for a top order batsman facing a lot of the new ball, trying to build a platform.
[Brief intermission, by the way, to indicate just how much bullshit is spoken by cricket experts. For years, they've talked about England's tactic of building a platform in order to step up the pace in the last 15 overs as hopelessly outdated, but, in fact, that's exactly how nearly all the top, most successful teams are compiling their runs in this tournament. The problem for England is usually not the first 30 overs, it's the fact that the young, talented, explosive finishers are not getting enough. Anyway, that's not my agenda right now. England are just bad at ODI cricket at the moment, let's not torture ourselves with solutions ...]
Back to Bell. Is Bell a great ODI player? No. But he's fine, he's not the problem. It's not his strongest format, but he's been a perfectly good opener/number 3 for England. Not quite enough 100s, but plenty of decent platforms. That's usually sufficient for a one-day opener. He's not the problem. Put it this way. Supposing every England player is given orders, a task, an agenda for every match [Eg the solid starter, the accelerator, the consolidator, the finisher, the death bowler, the tight middle overs bowler, the new ball destroyer etc ...), I bet Bell is the one who comes closest to successfully fulfilling their agenda most often. But still, his place is fragile, support for him is fragile, criticism is regular. A sense of disappointment, frustration.
Is he a great test player? No, but he's better than fine, he's very very good. Do statistics lie in cricket? No, they don't lie, you just have to understand them. The test average is still, essentially, with a variety of caveats, the best indicator of how good a batsman you are.
Bell's is 45. Very good, but not great. 50 is great. Worth saying that only one England batsman in 60 years, Ken Barrington, has scored over 3000 test runs and averaged over 50. For other countries, there are a lot more. It's harder for an England player to have a very high average because the pitches here are a bit harder to bat on, beyond any other reasons. Still, Bell's 45 is excellent but not necessarily better than Gower's 44.25 in the 80s, when there were more great bowlers around, and no Bangladesh.
Aah, Bangladesh. Getting back to 2005. Bell took a big unbeaten century off Bangladesh at the start of 2005, briefly elevating his average over 200, before it came flying down in the five tests of the classic Ashes of 2005, where Bell only made only two 50s, was the only England player not to contribute significantly, looked a little out of his depth, was bullied a little.
From that summer came the notion that Ian Bell only scores cheap runs, fails when the heat is on, cannot be relied on. Also the notion that he, like David Gower, gets in then out too often, too many 50s, not enough 100s.
How much truth? Almost none. Early on, there was a stat that Bell's 100s often came when other people scored 100s too. That is mildly noteworthy, though not particularly (it can be taken to mean he was good at building partnerships, good at pushing a decent situation into a very good one), but in any case the second half of his career has thoroughly put that to bed.
What's the truth, then? Firstly, has he got enough 100s compared to 50s. He's scored 21 100s and 42 50s in 105 tests, pleasing statistics. 1 100 every 5 games, 2 50s every 5 games, exactly 50% 100s as 50s. Higher than Gooch, Stewart, Gower, Atherton, Thorpe, Hussain, Trescothick, less high than Cook, Pietersen, Boycott, Vaughan, Hutton etc. Basically, perfectly good without being noteworthy. He converts a good amount of 100s, he has no noteworthy problem in that regard.
What about the idea that he scores cheap runs? How's he done against different nations? Well, he has a very high average against Bangladesh, as do a lot of people, but he's only played 6 tests against Bangladesh, so that's a pretty limited effect on his overall average.
Apart from that, there's general consistency against different nations. His lowest average is against New Zealand, 32, hardly a renowned force, and he's done fine against pretty much everyone else. Only 36 against Australia, arguably the biggest threat. But no one could say he hasn't triumphed against Australia. That relatively low average is based largely on 2005. Apart from that, well, there were quite a few valuable 50s in some series, but huge triumphs in 2010-11 and 2013, when he played key roles in winning the Ashes. He scored different types of valuable runs in the relatively easy, run-heavy 20-11 series in Australia, but it's 2013 which is probably his greatest triumph.
Bluntly, England would have lost the series without him, instead of winning it by a deceptive 3-0 margin. His 562 runs at 62 in the series do not reflect the magnitude of his performance. Three great 100s amid batting chaos and carnage. Those were as much Bell's Ashes as 1981 was Botham's Ashes. Doesn't have the same ring to it, though ... he was in the Top 10 for Sports Personality of the Year and received barely enough votes to get his money back.
His overall average is 51 at home, 40 away, which is about standard. Most people do better at home than abroad, some far more significantly so. Basically, if you're looking for anything unusual, any blip in Ian Bell's overall stats, it's not there. He's just been a very good test player with a very good test record.
People have not warmed to him. I remember watching him getting one of his few 50s in the 2005 Ashes in a pub, just a callow youth, and England fans were hurling abuse at him. "Bell's shit. Why is Bell in the team? etc" If you follow England on the BBC website, every Bell dismissal is followed by a heap of wise commenters saying the same ... "time for Bell to go" "Bell's so frustrating" "Bell's left us down again" "Typical Bell - no sense of responsibilty" etc etc.
What exactly he done wrong? I'm not immune to it myself. There've been a couple of times I've agreed that he ought be lose his place, yes, his dismissals can be frustrating if he gets to 40 and then nicks one inexplicably, but, really no more than anyone else. That's batting. You have good and bad runs, you make 50s and 100s. For me, I look at him and think "well, yes, you might look back on your career and think 'maybe, maybe, i could have averaged 50 rather than 45, really gone on to the be the greatest England batsman of the modern era ...' and he hasn't quite done that, but has he really deserved all the doubt and equivocation?
His career is littered with top innings in difficult situations, the opposite of cheap runs. The 2013 Ashes is atop the list of course, but then there are innings against Pakistan in 2006, New Zealand in 2007/8, valuable 50s in the 2009 Ashes, then (this is where his career really took off) a 100 and a great 72 in South Africa in 2009-10, Australia 2010 and India 2011, India 2012, there are several match-winning and match-saving contributions.
Yet he remains unloved, even unrespected. His impressive stats remain untrusted. The pleasant and meek face, the apparent timidness, the memory of 2005, the Shermanator, the fact that it looks like it's easy for him ... but mainly the fact that people get an idea in their head and can't escape from it. He's weak, he's disappointing, that's what I know about Ian Bell and i'm sticking with it ...
Could he, should he, have done better? He seems to be pretty close to the glass ceiling for England batsmen of the last 50 years. Pietersen, Boycott. May and Cook average a tiny bit higher, some have scored a few more runs and centuries (though this may not remain the case) but to suppose Bell could and should have achieved more seems an unfairly high standard to judge him by.
Even though Bell's been an almost-constant in one of England's best ever decades of test cricket, even though no team mate has ever said a bad word about him, indeed quite the opposite, and he's seen as a cohesive, quietly intelligent presence (in fact, Pietersen has said Bell would make a better captain than Cook), even though he's won matches for England and has numbers that ought to stand the test of time across all forms of the game, he won't be looked on as one of England's greatest. Well, probably not. Perhaps it's up to him now. Perhaps the jury is out, and if he can push on to 10,000 runs from his current 7000, 30 centuries, keep the average over 45, he'll get the respect he deserves. Or maybe 9000 of those will still be considered cheap runs ...
Ian Bell's the England player of the last 10 years I've most wished well for and whose successes I've enjoyed the most. I came across him on a cricket tour to the Midlands when I was about 15 and he'd have been about 11. I don't think I played in the game, I think I was just scorer, so I was able to hear the opposition players talk about this tiny kid with high regard. He'd apparently scored 200 the week before. This game was an Under-18 game and he was about half the size of some of the players, but he easily, calmly made 30* and I thought I'd look out for him in future.
It was no surprise when his name started to come up as a future star in his late teens, he made his England test debut vs West Indies in 2004, made an easy 70 and then got out a little unexpectedly
(plus ca change, you say ...)
The next summer, 2005, can be seen to define public perception of him and the issues that have dogged him his whole career. Two tests vs Bangladesh and five vs Australia. The last time tests were on terrestrial TV so, possibly, a lot of his critics had their opinion of him set in stone then.
Moving forward, Bell has ended this World Cup with over 250 runs at an average of over 50, strike rate 77. Yes, but he's got out just when he should have pushed on, yes but that's too slow, he's representative of the old style of cricket etc ... Bell, though hardly ever seemingly like a settled fixture in England's one-day set up, and regularly shuffled around the order, is now England's record run scorer in ODIs. His average and his strike rate are both perfectly decent for a top order batsman facing a lot of the new ball, trying to build a platform.
[Brief intermission, by the way, to indicate just how much bullshit is spoken by cricket experts. For years, they've talked about England's tactic of building a platform in order to step up the pace in the last 15 overs as hopelessly outdated, but, in fact, that's exactly how nearly all the top, most successful teams are compiling their runs in this tournament. The problem for England is usually not the first 30 overs, it's the fact that the young, talented, explosive finishers are not getting enough. Anyway, that's not my agenda right now. England are just bad at ODI cricket at the moment, let's not torture ourselves with solutions ...]
Back to Bell. Is Bell a great ODI player? No. But he's fine, he's not the problem. It's not his strongest format, but he's been a perfectly good opener/number 3 for England. Not quite enough 100s, but plenty of decent platforms. That's usually sufficient for a one-day opener. He's not the problem. Put it this way. Supposing every England player is given orders, a task, an agenda for every match [Eg the solid starter, the accelerator, the consolidator, the finisher, the death bowler, the tight middle overs bowler, the new ball destroyer etc ...), I bet Bell is the one who comes closest to successfully fulfilling their agenda most often. But still, his place is fragile, support for him is fragile, criticism is regular. A sense of disappointment, frustration.
Is he a great test player? No, but he's better than fine, he's very very good. Do statistics lie in cricket? No, they don't lie, you just have to understand them. The test average is still, essentially, with a variety of caveats, the best indicator of how good a batsman you are.
Bell's is 45. Very good, but not great. 50 is great. Worth saying that only one England batsman in 60 years, Ken Barrington, has scored over 3000 test runs and averaged over 50. For other countries, there are a lot more. It's harder for an England player to have a very high average because the pitches here are a bit harder to bat on, beyond any other reasons. Still, Bell's 45 is excellent but not necessarily better than Gower's 44.25 in the 80s, when there were more great bowlers around, and no Bangladesh.
Aah, Bangladesh. Getting back to 2005. Bell took a big unbeaten century off Bangladesh at the start of 2005, briefly elevating his average over 200, before it came flying down in the five tests of the classic Ashes of 2005, where Bell only made only two 50s, was the only England player not to contribute significantly, looked a little out of his depth, was bullied a little.
From that summer came the notion that Ian Bell only scores cheap runs, fails when the heat is on, cannot be relied on. Also the notion that he, like David Gower, gets in then out too often, too many 50s, not enough 100s.
How much truth? Almost none. Early on, there was a stat that Bell's 100s often came when other people scored 100s too. That is mildly noteworthy, though not particularly (it can be taken to mean he was good at building partnerships, good at pushing a decent situation into a very good one), but in any case the second half of his career has thoroughly put that to bed.
What's the truth, then? Firstly, has he got enough 100s compared to 50s. He's scored 21 100s and 42 50s in 105 tests, pleasing statistics. 1 100 every 5 games, 2 50s every 5 games, exactly 50% 100s as 50s. Higher than Gooch, Stewart, Gower, Atherton, Thorpe, Hussain, Trescothick, less high than Cook, Pietersen, Boycott, Vaughan, Hutton etc. Basically, perfectly good without being noteworthy. He converts a good amount of 100s, he has no noteworthy problem in that regard.
What about the idea that he scores cheap runs? How's he done against different nations? Well, he has a very high average against Bangladesh, as do a lot of people, but he's only played 6 tests against Bangladesh, so that's a pretty limited effect on his overall average.
Apart from that, there's general consistency against different nations. His lowest average is against New Zealand, 32, hardly a renowned force, and he's done fine against pretty much everyone else. Only 36 against Australia, arguably the biggest threat. But no one could say he hasn't triumphed against Australia. That relatively low average is based largely on 2005. Apart from that, well, there were quite a few valuable 50s in some series, but huge triumphs in 2010-11 and 2013, when he played key roles in winning the Ashes. He scored different types of valuable runs in the relatively easy, run-heavy 20-11 series in Australia, but it's 2013 which is probably his greatest triumph.
Bluntly, England would have lost the series without him, instead of winning it by a deceptive 3-0 margin. His 562 runs at 62 in the series do not reflect the magnitude of his performance. Three great 100s amid batting chaos and carnage. Those were as much Bell's Ashes as 1981 was Botham's Ashes. Doesn't have the same ring to it, though ... he was in the Top 10 for Sports Personality of the Year and received barely enough votes to get his money back.
His overall average is 51 at home, 40 away, which is about standard. Most people do better at home than abroad, some far more significantly so. Basically, if you're looking for anything unusual, any blip in Ian Bell's overall stats, it's not there. He's just been a very good test player with a very good test record.
People have not warmed to him. I remember watching him getting one of his few 50s in the 2005 Ashes in a pub, just a callow youth, and England fans were hurling abuse at him. "Bell's shit. Why is Bell in the team? etc" If you follow England on the BBC website, every Bell dismissal is followed by a heap of wise commenters saying the same ... "time for Bell to go" "Bell's so frustrating" "Bell's left us down again" "Typical Bell - no sense of responsibilty" etc etc.
What exactly he done wrong? I'm not immune to it myself. There've been a couple of times I've agreed that he ought be lose his place, yes, his dismissals can be frustrating if he gets to 40 and then nicks one inexplicably, but, really no more than anyone else. That's batting. You have good and bad runs, you make 50s and 100s. For me, I look at him and think "well, yes, you might look back on your career and think 'maybe, maybe, i could have averaged 50 rather than 45, really gone on to the be the greatest England batsman of the modern era ...' and he hasn't quite done that, but has he really deserved all the doubt and equivocation?
His career is littered with top innings in difficult situations, the opposite of cheap runs. The 2013 Ashes is atop the list of course, but then there are innings against Pakistan in 2006, New Zealand in 2007/8, valuable 50s in the 2009 Ashes, then (this is where his career really took off) a 100 and a great 72 in South Africa in 2009-10, Australia 2010 and India 2011, India 2012, there are several match-winning and match-saving contributions.
Yet he remains unloved, even unrespected. His impressive stats remain untrusted. The pleasant and meek face, the apparent timidness, the memory of 2005, the Shermanator, the fact that it looks like it's easy for him ... but mainly the fact that people get an idea in their head and can't escape from it. He's weak, he's disappointing, that's what I know about Ian Bell and i'm sticking with it ...
Could he, should he, have done better? He seems to be pretty close to the glass ceiling for England batsmen of the last 50 years. Pietersen, Boycott. May and Cook average a tiny bit higher, some have scored a few more runs and centuries (though this may not remain the case) but to suppose Bell could and should have achieved more seems an unfairly high standard to judge him by.
Even though Bell's been an almost-constant in one of England's best ever decades of test cricket, even though no team mate has ever said a bad word about him, indeed quite the opposite, and he's seen as a cohesive, quietly intelligent presence (in fact, Pietersen has said Bell would make a better captain than Cook), even though he's won matches for England and has numbers that ought to stand the test of time across all forms of the game, he won't be looked on as one of England's greatest. Well, probably not. Perhaps it's up to him now. Perhaps the jury is out, and if he can push on to 10,000 runs from his current 7000, 30 centuries, keep the average over 45, he'll get the respect he deserves. Or maybe 9000 of those will still be considered cheap runs ...
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