Ian Bell plays a pretty decent innings, but England lose so it doesn't really count

The point of the World Cup players to watch is surely that they have some sort of impact on the tournament. By this token, anything achieved in a losing cause is null and void.

Maybe it's different for Ian Bell. We're not quite sure for definite, but we think that we may have selected him as much to say 'look, he's really not that bad' as we did for any more grandiose reason.

People still think Ian Bell's rubbish, because he was when most people were paying attention to cricket - when England won the Ashes. He was only about fifteen then though and he'd wound up in this massively pressured environment having played about two international matches.

Since then he's been finding his feet. He's still only 24 and he's a decent international batsman who's worth his place in the England team. That's quite an achievement, but people are hard to win over.

He's not someone who blows the public away either. He's a sensible batsman. You have to have them, but Joe Public prefers the Flintoffs of this world, even though the Flintoffs of this world average ten runs less than Ian Bell.

Yesterday Ian Bell hit 77. There was a bit more derring-do than normal and it was against Australia. Maybe it was an important innings in his battle to win over the people, even if it wasn't an important innings in the context of this World Cup.