Strauss has faith in Bell

A player of the calibre of Ian Bell coming in is very re-assuring. He's a proven Test performer, he's played in the Ashes before and he's done that spell out of the side that a lot of us have been through.

Andrew Strauss
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England batsman Ian Bell has been backed to make an immediate impact on his return to Test cricket.

The 27-year-old has been a frustrated spectator after being dropped following the humiliating defeat to West Indies in Jamaica in early February.

However with Kevin Pietersen being ruled out of the rest of the series against Australia with an Achilles injury, Bell has been recalled to the middle order for the third npower Ashes Test at Edgbaston.

England skipper Andrew Strauss knows only too well about the pain of being axed from the international side, having suffered the same fate two winters ago.

And having been in superb form since his own recall, Strauss - who has scored eight hundreds and averaged more than 53 in the 21 Tests since returning - is backing Bell to follow in his own footsteps.

Worried

"When you've been struggling for runs your mindset gets quite negative and you are worried about losing your place in the side," said Strauss.

"When you are left out, you realise that life goes on and if you get another opportunity it's a massive positive and something that you can't really lose on. That as a mindset is a pretty good place to be.

"Ian's done a lot of work. We sent him away and it was a pretty bitter pill to swallow.

"He's done a lot of fitness work, scored a lot of runs for Warwickshire, he's done everything we've asked of him and he's had to dig pretty deep to do that. So I think he's going to be a better batsman for that experience.

"A player of the calibre of Ian Bell coming in is very re-assuring. He's a proven Test performer, he's played in the Ashes before and he's done that spell out of the side that a lot of us have been through.

"It's not much fun when you are out of it but it makes you very, very hungry when you come back in."