Ian Bell- The man of GRIT

Going into his hundredth test, which is a great achievement in a cricketers life, Ian Bell has proved be one of the most consistent batsman in the English squad.

He made his test debut with a beautifully placed 70 against the West Indies. But this wasn't how the story went for him. There were question marks whether his stomach is up for a battle but he has overcome all that, and going into the hundredth, he is firmly the main man in the England batting middle order. He had to struggle for the first half of his career as in he had averaged only 39.79 in the first 49 matches. But he did not give up and came back strongly with an average of 51.30 in the last 50 matches, and has played positively in his entire career. The overall figure is average for a man, who is going to play his 100th match. He averages 45.24 in 99 matches. Ian Bell will be only the 12th Englishman to have played 100 test match, which is nothing great than glory.

Ian Bell, had a dream start to his test career, with 70 on debut followed by two unbeaten knocks of 65 and 162, against Bangladesh, the expectations were very high. This took a toll on his next series to Australia when he managed to score just 171 of 10 innings. His favorite opponent has been Pakistan he has scored against them at home and away. A poor Ashes in 2009 saw downfall in Bell’s career. But it did not put any pressure on him as it shows, after a poor Ashes in 2009, came his best phase of his career, when he scored 8 hundreds in 20 matches averaging over a 80. He became England’s top run scorer in 2011. He played a major role in India’s clean sweep. Two of the best highlights were when he scored 140 in the first innings at Durban boxing day test, which set up a big total, and when he scores 78 after standing there for nearly 5 hours to save the day. Indeed it was a match winning effort. And finally he laid hands on the mighty Aussies in 2010-11 Ashes, when he scored 329 runs averaging 65.80.

With the stats not showing, much of his match winning effort, Bell has consistently done it for England at tough times, and now he is England’s back bone in test cricket.

Looking at Ian Bell, his style of batting, it seems so the art of batting comes easily to him. He is still 32 and has lot of cricket left in him, we all wish him a very good luck for his 100th test match and hope for a big one too.