Bell tolls too little

82 days to go and long enough forIan Bell to compile at least one score that exceeds expectations. He averages 40-plus in Tests, he has a top score of 199 and sometimes he looks the part of the gritty, never-say-die No.3 that Bob Woolmer promised he would be ten years ago.

But this Bell never tolls beyond what you might call his mean average. This week against Somerset - where the pitch is much flatter than the local scrumpy - he made what has been described as a giant nudge in the side of the selectors but ought to have scored a double hundred and contrived to get out 25 runs short.

So it not surprising that the selectors are looking round for someone else. Owais Shah, he of the leaden feet and the slow reaction time; Ravi Bopara who will I suspect always look like a one-day batsman looking for the right batting place in a Test line-up; or Michael Vaughan, one of the England greats, but at what stage in his career.

There is no clear cut answer although I wish that Mark Butcher, a batsman meant to be a Test hero, might shed a couple of pound and five years and make a dramatic comeback.