Ashes 2015: David Warner calls Ian Bell an easy wicket

Ashes 2015: David Warner calls Ian Bell an easy wicket: The Third Ashes Investec test match is set to take place at Edgbaston from 29th July. England suffered a dismantling drubbing at the hands of Australians in the second Ashes test match at Lords by an enormous margin of 405 runs. After the loss, the whole English team was criticized by the fans and media. But, Ian Bell who was the difference between both the sides when they last met at English soil in 2013/14 Ashes is hogging the limelight as he confronts a dire situation of do or die when England lock horns with Australia on his home ground.

The Australians and David Warner in particular are renowned for playing mind games to unsettle the opponents. It was evident in the build up of this match as well, when Warner termed Ian Bell’s wicket as an easy wicket. The Australian southpaw said, “I think with Bell where he is at the moment, he almost seems like an easy wicket at the moment because he’s not scoring as many runs as he would like.

But, the Australian team is also aware about the top-notch skills of Bell as a batter which won him many accolades when he single-handedly outwitted the Australians in 2013/14 Ashes series. David Warner further said, “Australia were wary that a player with Bell’s record in Test cricket could easily turn it all around, especially on his home ground Edgbaston for the third match of the series but added that Johnson and Co. had their plans in place against him.

But it’s cricket. It’s a funny game. Bell is an experienced player who has got a lot of runs under his belt, but he’s just in one of those patches. It only takes one good knock to come back and get back into form said the 28-year old Australian opening batsman”.

Ian Bell’s career has elapsed for 10 long years and for 112 test matches in which the Warwickshire man has accumulated a total of 7,427 runs at an average of 43.18 with 22 centuries against his name. Since 2014, he has scored 723 runs in 15 test matches at an average of 27.81. While this summer, Bell has managed only 116 runs in 8 innings at an average of about 14.

David Warner also told his side of the story on the recent criticism which came from Brendon McCullum and Matthew Hayden who had rebuked Warner for not applauding Joe Root’s century in Cardiff. McCullum had said that Warner should show more respect on the field.

The demolishing opener cleared the air about this controversy. He insisted, “If the camera had stayed on me for the five minutes he celebrated they’d have seen me clap alongside the other guys. The captions they use are always going to be a snapshot of you doing something, and the time that photo was taken was probably a minute and a half after he raised his bat.

We all clap, we always do and we always will continue acknowledging people’s knocks. It was disappointing it came out that I didn’t clap, when I did”.