And me, bloody slow coaches thought I could watch them win but I am finishing work so will have to listen to us win instead.
He's stolen an England career. He goes through long phases of **** and just as he's on the brink of being dropped he comes out with a century or important innings that keeps him in the side. It took him several years to post his first hundred in an innings in which someone else hadn't already scored a hundred for England.
The noise is deafening. Forget 100,000 at the MCG. England have 20,000 at Edgbaston. It's putting off Mitchell Johnson who aborts his run-up. Then he bowls from behind the crease. Lost it. Gone. Mitchell Johnson has now dropped his glasses. Edgbaston has broken him. **** Sounds like quite the atmosphere!
Do tell us what his test batting average is. Anyway. It's all over Win by 8 wickets. Well played England.
Well done England! Do it again at Trent Bridge and the series is ours! But our form is now WLWLWLW - suggest it could be a tight finish to the series...
I can tell you a lot about him... His test average is 43 which isn't that impressive given he has never had to worry about captaincy, keeping wicket, bowling etc. What is even less impressive is his average against Australia (35) which is the biggest test of any England batsman. He does however average 158 against Bangladesh. Of his 22 test centuries only 7 were overseas. 4 centuries against Australia, 3 of them at home (all 3 against a **** Australia team that was beaten 3-0). Talented player but he's always lacked mental toughness. Warne spotted that straight away and the Sherminator tag really got to Bell. He's lived off that Dayle Hadlee quote (best 16 year old he'd ever seen) for a long time! Compare that to the often maligned Cook who is a vastly superior player and who averages 46 in test cricket and 39 against Australia despite carrying the burden of captaincy for some of his career. Of his 27 test centuries, 15 were overseas. 4 centuries against Australia, all of them in Australia.
Good win. 2 1/2 days, can't complain with that. Shame didn't last longer for the fans though. Need to follow low it up wth decent performance in the next one which is what we failed to do at lords after the good win in Cardiff. Lyths England career is hanging on the balance. lots of all a for him to be dropped and Hales to come in, especially at Trent Bridge which is his home ground. Could Hales/Cook be our Warner/Rodgers type partnership. An explosive player to help get the innings going?
Not many second innings centuries and no second innings ones when batting second if I recall correctly. Top batsmen get second innings tons.
Just playing devil's advocate here (as I agree he's lucky not to have been dropped ages ago) but Bell may well have a far better test average if he'd played at number 3 more often. It's his best test position these days and that's been glaringly obvious for a while. Before this test his last score at 3 was 270 odd against India (I think) and now he's got two half centuries so the best part of 400 runs in 3 innings.
