Ian Ronald Bell is a professional test cricketer from England. He is associated with the Warwickshire County Cricket Club. Basically he is a right handed batsman of the middle or higher order who occasionally bowls right arm medium pace. His forte is his sharp reflexes and he frequently fields in close catching positions.

Bell finished his education from the Princethorpe College. He was not only a talented cricketer but also a privileged student of the Coventry City’s school of excellence. In April 1998 he was selected in the Under-19 team of England for the New Zealand tour. In the first Test in the first innings he scored 91 while in the third Test in the first innings he scored 115. Due to such performances Dayle Hadlee announced that Bell was the best 16 year old cricketer he had ever seen. Further Bell was compared with Micheal Atherton the former England skipper. Bell was the skipper of the Under-19 team in 2000 when it played against Sri Lanka, in 2000/2001 when it played against India and in 2001 in the first match against West Indies at home.

Ian Bell’s international career began in the year 2004. In the last game of the Test series against the West Indies Bell made his international debut at The Oval. In the first innings of England he batted at the fifth position and scored 70. England gave the West Indies a follow-on and won the game by 10 wickets. Thus Bell did not get an opportunity to bat again.

For the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies Bell was chosen as a part of the 15 man team of England. Bell was asked to bat at third position and he scored 5, 28, 16 and 31 in the matches against New Zealand, Kenya, Canada and Ireland. Due to his descending performance at number 3, he was promoted on a trail to bat at the number 1 position with Michael Vaughan. Although England lost that match to Australia, Bell successfully scored 77 runs. In the Super 8 stage of the tournament England was ranked the fifth and could not qualify for the semi finals.

In the recent 2007-08 One-day International (ODI) tour to New Zealand Bell started his first two matches scoring only 5 and 0 runs. However in the third game of the series in Auckland England was victorious and Bell top scored with 73 runs. In Napier in the fourth match he scored 43 runs in 41 balls. In the last match he could score 24 runs and New Zealand won the series by a score of 3-1.

Major achievements

Awarded the Most excellent order of the British Empire (MBE) Honors in 2006 for his successful Ashes Campaign in 2005.

In November 2006, he was awarded the prestigious Emerging Player of the Year award by the International Cricket Council.