Bell wants to celebrate 100th Test with series win

David Clough 14:23 19/06/2014
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  • Milestone man: Bell has scored 6,787 runs and averages 45.27 in 99 Tests.

    Ian Bell’s 100th Test is the culmination of a lifelong dream – but he still hopes there is plenty more to come.

    Bell is set to become the 12th England player in history to reach a century of Test caps when he plays in the series decider against Sri Lanka, starting at Headingley on Friday. His landmark Test, at the age of 32, comes 10 years into an England career which has spanned four Ashes series victories.

    Three of his 20 Test centuries came in last summer’s home win against Australia, an achievement which helped him become England’s 2013/14 player of the year.

    In reaching 100 Tests, Bell is following in the most recent footsteps last winter of captain Alastair Cook and the subsequently-discarded Kevin Pietersen. But it is matching the longevity of childhood heroes such as Alec Stewart and Michael Atherton which is most resonant.

    “It’s an amazing feeling,” he said.

    “As a kid, all I wanted to do was play for England. People like Atherton, Stewart, you watch them get 100 Tests and you think it’s what you’d love to do. That was my dream, so to manage to do it is an incredible feeling.

    “It’s why I played the game.”

    There were fleeting moments when 100 Tests seemed too distant to contemplate – notably during a short hiatus in his career when he was dropped at the start of the Andy Flower era in the Caribbean in 2009.

    “There were times when I probably doubted it,” Bell said.

    “In 2009, when I got left out in the winter in West Indies, I wondered whether I would get close to that. After that West Indies trip, I started to score runs when the team really needed them – and that’s what I’ve tried to do That was a massive turning point in me, where I thought I could go on and get 100 Tests.”

    Many career highs have followed, but he is intent on more – starting with series victory against Sri Lanka after Monday’s nail-biting near miss when the tourists held on for a stalemate with nine wickets down at Lord’s.

    “It’s great to get to 100 Tests, but we’ve got a series to win,” he said. “There are bigger things for this week. It was a great game at Lord’s, and it’s poised perfectly, so it would be a great way for me to mark 100 Tests if we won the series here.

    “That’s the goal.”

    There are other ambitions for the longer term, though.

    “I hope there is a lot more to come,” Bell added.

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