Ian Bell is loving life as an opener, with the England batsman approaching another massive landmark in his eventful career.
With the Three Lions ready to take on Australia again in the Tri-Series tomorrow, Bell is just 98 away from surpassing Paul Collingwood as England’s highest one-day international run-scorer.
The focus remains on taking England’s superb performance against India from Tuesday into the Bellerive Oval in Hobart, but Bell did take time out to delve on a few personal successes.
Bell led England’s batting with aplomb against India, smashing a brilliant unbeaten 88 off 91 balls - after Steven Finn's superb bowling - toease his side home by nine wickets.
“Looking back in my time playing one-day cricket for England, my most successful time has been opening the batting,” Bell said. “So it was nice to start this tour how I wanted to.
“Opening the batting in those first 10 overs definitely suits my game, certainly in these conditions, where there's more bounce. You can play off the back foot, front foot, hit it over the fielders in those first 10.”
Bell is also pleased at the spirit in the England camp, which saw Yorkshire bowler Tim Bresnan link up and join in today's training session, similar to the role played by Andrew Flintoff earlier in the series.
Bresnan was on hand to take part in fielding drills and send down a few overs in the nets. With that added benefit, Bell is now looking forward to getting another important win under his belt.
“Looking around, the confidence and mood that we have as a group, we’re in a good place,” he said.
“Every time you play Australia, you want to win. It will be nice to start the game well and have a good hundred overs as we did against India.”
Fitness work and touch rugby warm-up for the squad in rainy Hobart today #triseries#CWC15https://t.co/eAmIcoITD4
— England Cricket (@ECB_cricket) January 22, 2015