Ian Bell may have been fretting over his form but he did not betray any nerves as his half-century helped England push towards victory in the Ashes opener.
Bell came into the series sorely out of form and managed just one in his first attempt at Cardiff, taking his recent tally to just 56 in nine innings since a classy hundred in Antigua.
At 33 years old, such lean sequences cannot simply be brushed aside and Bell, despite 111 Test caps and 22 centuries in the bank, is honest enough to admit to some anxiety.
Few would have guessed as he compiled a breezy 60 in England’s second innings.
“It’s been a testing period for me. There’s no doubt I’ve been concerned,” he said on Friday. “You have to dig deep sometimes, look right inside, and I had to work really hard. This is an incredible game, it’s always testing you.
“It’s obviously nice to play something like my best. That’s my job (and) it’s been four or five games without a score.”
Bell offered a nod to those musing over his place in the side, obviously aware that the vultures were limbering up, if not yet circling, but was more focused on the team’s dominant position than his own riposte. When you’re not scoring runs as a batter that (speculation) is the case, there’s no doubt,” he said.
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“I knew this knock was going to be very important individually, but that’s irrelevant. It’s about getting a total to win a game of cricket.
“That’s how I saw it. I wanted to go out and play for the team, be aggressive, be busy and that took a lot of pressure off me.”
Bell might be an elder statesman in the current set-up, the last man standing from the 2005 Ashes no less, but he is just as optimistic about England’s newfound commitment to attacking cricket as anyone.
“It’s about being positive all the time. That’s not to say in the past we haven’t tried to play like that – but now we’ve got younger guys who were raised that way,” he said.
“They just see the game a little bit differently. They want to take every (attacking) option on – which is completely different, I suppose, to when I started.
BOOM! He’s back. Great knock, Belly @Ian_Bell. Keep going.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 10, 2015
“There are days when it doesn’t come off … but for me, it’s a breath of fresh air for me and great to be involved in.”
Nathan Lyon, who became the first Australian off-spinner to pass 150 Test wickets when he returned four for 75, was bullish about the tourists’ prospects.
“Records are made to be broken,” he said. “We’re remaining positive. We’ve got a world-class batting line-up and we bat right down to 11 so there is no reason why we can’t get these runs if we apply ourselves properly.”
“You don’t get extra points if you chase it down in 30 overs. We’ve got 180 overs to chase down 400 runs so there is no reason why we need to come out and be 100 off 10 overs.”
