Ian Bell is being considered for a possible Test recall this winter, having already been sounded out by the England head coach, Trevor Bayliss, regarding his desire to return. Bell, 34, has not played for England since the 2-0 defeat by Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in November last year but, with middle-order problems having hindered the side since then, his 118 Test caps and 11 years of international experience could yet see him win a place for the tours to Bangladesh and India.
Bayliss met Bell last week on the final day of Warwickshire’s defeat by Surrey at Edgbaston and while the conversation was in part to hear his verdict on the opposition’s two spin bowlers, Zafar Ansari and Gareth Batty, the England head coach was also checking whether the right-hander still held Test ambitions.
Hampshire’s James Vince is unlikely to be retained after a chastening first summer in which he scored only 212 runs in 11 innings and now England are understood to be debating whether Bell would represent a pragmatic pick for a gruelling pre‑Christmas schedule that features seven Tests in the space of two months or a retrograde step for a team in development.
Bell, who is still centrally contracted, has not made a compelling case for a return in terms of his numbers this season, having scored only one hundred in 16 first-class innings, but with 7,727 Test runs and 22 centuries there is a growing belief among sections of the England management that his inclusion would aid a dressing room light on subcontinental experience.
Central to the decision to drop Bell before the tour of South Africa last winter, along with a run of 21 Test innings without a century, was a belief that he had lost his hunger after 11 years on the international treadmill. Key to any recall, therefore – along with a strong finish to the summer with the bat – will be convincing Bayliss and the Test captain, Alastair Cook, that it has returned.
Bayliss in particular is keen to forge on with a younger crop of players but, given the daunting challenge of trying to emulate the 2012 team who won away in India for the first time in 27 years, the Australian could yet be convinced by the case for Bell, as well as that of the 38‑year‑old off-spinner Batty, when the selectors meet in the second week of September.
Talk of a possible return has come at a time when Bell, who took over the Warwickshire captaincy at the start of this year, is weighing up new opportunities in the autumn of his playing career, with negotiations over a deal to play Twenty20 cricket for Perth Scorchers in Australia’s Big Bash League understood to be taking place.
Perth have one overseas place free in their squad after agreeing to re-sign the England and Yorkshire all-rounder David Willey over the weekend following his impressive first season in Australia last winter. It was a deal that Justin Langer, the Scorchers head coach, admitted bent the team’s policy on foreign signings, given the all-rounder will be available for just the first half of their season because of England’s post-Christmas one-day international series in India.
Were Bell to earn an England recall he would likely miss Perth’s opening fixture on 23 December, which comes only two days after the fifth Test against India in Chennai, but would then be available for the remainder of the campaign. Having top-scored for Warwickshire in this season’s T20 Blast, returning 489 runs and five half-centuries in 14 innings, the Big Bash League represents a possible springboard for Bell to spend winters as a short‑form specialist.
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