Ian Bell expects Australia come back in Ashes test

Michael Clarke of Australia exchanges words with England's James Anderson as Umpire Aleem Dar looks on. Picture: Getty Images

Bell made a timely return to form with a brace of half-centuries on his home ground, helping England to an eight-wicket victory inside three days and a 2-1 series lead.

It was an outstanding display from Alastair Cook’s men following their 405-run thrashing at Lord’s, although Bell is wary of underestimating the tourists, who themselves remarkably bounced back after a heavy defeat in Cardiff.

“We fully expect Australia to come back hard, if not harder, and this is going to go right to the wire,” Bell said.

“I don’t see there being any draws in this series, so we have to play well. We have to front up again like we did [at Edgbaston] and we have to make sure we play the kind of cricket that we have done at Edgbaston at Trent Bridge.”

Following the conclusion of the second match of the series at Lord’s, Bell had averaged 20.84 in seven Tests this year, as speculation mounted he was about to lose his place.

He was given a reprieve and actually moved up a place to three in the batting order, replacing left-hander Gary Ballance, who was dropped following a similarly miserly run.

It was an opportunity Bell capitalised on with knocks of 53 and 65 not out in Birmingham and the 33-year-old  revealed the uncertainty of his place in the line-up actually helped,  rather than hindered, his mindset. “If anything over the last couple of months I feel like I haven’t been playing that well and when things started to get to that point where people were saying this might be my last Test match, I actually got into a simpler, much better mindset,” he said. “I was going to go out there and give it  absolutely everything and what will be, will be.”

Bell admitted his lean run – at one point he scored just 45 runs in seven innings – had taken its toll, although he felt a return to Edgbaston helped to bring him out of his reverie.

“It’s been really tough,” he said. “You go in and out of form, and sometimes you don’t know where the next run’s coming from and I honestly did feel like that at times.

“At this level you want to contribute and that’s the thing, I’ve always been somebody that tries to put the team first and when you’re not contributing to the team that’s probably worse than the individual stuff.

“It’s nice to come to Edgbaston. We’ve had incredible support as a team but, as a local player, I felt like when I walked out to bat in particular on day one it was the best applause I’ve got in my career, and I felt that the whole crowd was with me and desperate for me to do well.”

Meanwhile, Australia batting coach Michael di Venuto has backed under-fire captain Michael Clarke to rediscover his own batting touch in the remaining two Ashes Tests.

After the defeat at Edgbaston, Clarke admitted: “It is time for the captain to get off the plane and turn up.”

The 34-year-old has contributed just 94 runs in six innings so far and the likes of Jason Gillespie and Michael Vaughan have suggested Clarke’s international career could be in jeopardy if his output does not improve.

Yet Di Venuto has pointed to the upturn in fortunes of England batsman Bell as proof that quality players can never be written off.

“The skipper is a hard trainer and he’s doing all the right things,” Di Venuto said.

“I guess we saw it in this [third] Test match with Ian Bell – class is permanent.

“You don’t lose your class. He [Clarke] is not scoring the runs that he would like at the moment but you don’t play the amount of cricket that he has played not for something just to be around the corner. We’re quite confident that he’ll come good in this series.”