Bell tolled for Ian as he was dropped from the Eng squad

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/s...42217.html

Finally. This was long overdue. Ian Bell has been a wonderful servant to English cricket but he has not been up to Test standards for the last 2 years. This move should have been made prior to the series with New Zealand, but better late than never.

It will be interesting to see who replaces Bell at number three. I am glad to see Gary Ballance back in the squad - he is one option. Other options include moving Root up the order or Alex Hales with Nick Compton re-joining Cook at the top.

I am absolutely mystified as to why Samit Patel has been retained in the squad and Adil Rashid left out.

No Wood or Finn due to injuries hurt, and I am surprised that Plunkett failed to make the squad. I am pleased to see Footit's inclusion. He is one for the future.

Ian Bell , good luck for the future : truly a good man !  8)

I think Kevin Pietersen has taken this news harder than Ian Bell himself:

Quote:"I’m really pissed off".

"How can you take somebody who’s played over 100 Test matches and you’ve got the biggest Test series of the year coming up against the No.1 side in the world and you can drop him, leave him out of the tour?" Pietersen said in the video.

"I mean, it’s absolutely ridiculous.

"I understand how people can say 'yep, he might not have scored runs for a while', but you’re going to play South Africa in South Africa against one of the best bowling attacks that’s bowled over the last few years.

"You have to take him for his experience. You just have to take him. You cannot drop him before this.

"If he doesn’t score runs after South Africa then maybe, I can sort of understand it. But I just do not get the thinking behind this."

http://www.cricket.com.au/news/kevin-pie...2015-11-19

So KP admits that Bell hasn't scored runs for a while and yet he should face one of the best bowling attacks of the last few years. That makes no sense. I can appreciate KP standing up for a mate, but how many runs do you get for experience? Who cares about experience. It's not as though that experience helped him to score runs over the last two years, and it certainly didn't help England avoid a 2-0 defeat to Pakistan either.

KP argument has been the same for Shiv

despite Shiv being dropped from the ODI squad , years prior