Ian Bell: No regrets, I've given everything

He knows what has been written, what has been said, knows pencils are being sharpened ready to write the obituary on his England career should this week's Third Test not deliver the runs he hopes. It is, he admits, fair enough.

"I'm not stupid," says Bell. "I have been around the England team a long time, 11 years – and I know my job as a batter is to score runs.

"I know what I'm capable of and I think I have done that consistently enough for a long time but I also know I have had six or so games when I have not scored the runs that a top-order player expects. When you put on the shirt, that is what is expected of you, it's the bottom line.

"Hopefully this is the week I can turn it round and get into that run of form."

What Bell describes as his 'tricky little period' dates back six Test matches and three-and-a-half months, ever since he struck a century in Antigua during the opening Test of England's tour of the West Indies.

In the next 12 innings, he has managed just 117 runs and seven times been out for scores of one or none.

A dashing 60 in the first Ashes Test at Cardiff earlier this month hinted at a return to form but scores of one and 11 in England's crushing 405-run Second Test defeat at Lord's threw the focus firmly back on Bell as the series arrives at Edgbaston, his home ground.

Bell intends to draw on all the experience from his 112-match Test career to come through the rut.

Certainly, making history by becoming the first Warwickshire player to ever score an England century on the ground would be a good way of silencing those who claim his recent troubles are signs of a larger, more permanent decline.

"That's an amazing stat, considering the great players we have had at Warwickshire," he said. "I know things change, come in and out. I have been through this before earlier in my career. All players, even the great players, have been through tough periods.

"You just have to keep digging deep, keep coming up and fronting up, dusting yourself off and having another go.

"This is what it is about, I want to enjoy the occasion this week." After back-to-back Tests, the last week has given players the first chance to take breath and reflect.

"You have tough weeks," adds Bell. "For me it was about going home and spending time with the family, relaxing, getting away from the game but also having time to reflect on what you could have done better, how you can improve for this week coming up.

"I have had the time and the opportunity to do so.

"The series is poised brilliantly. I think a lot of people wrote us off before a ball was bowled, saying it was going to be 5-0, and the fact we won the first game changed a lot of expectations.

"Australia responded exactly how you would expect them to do so but I think if you had said at the start of the series we would go to Edgbaston at 1-1 I think you would have taken that.

"We're in a position where this could be one of the great Test series, let's go from there." With Gary Ballance the only man to be left out following the Lord's disappointment, Bell has been moved up a place in the order to No.3, the selectors clearly hoping the challenge will revive the form of a player who could still remain a mainstay of the England set-up for several years to come.

This is not the first time Bell has been under pressure, but it has been more than six years since his position in the England team has been subject to such serious scrutiny. He knows that, at 33, the repercussions of being dropped now could be far more serious but his added maturity, coupled with marriage and fatherhood, leaves him better placed to cope.

"People are entitled to their opinions but I do not play for other people," he says. "I play for myself, my family, my team-mates and my friends.

"That is what's important to me. Cricket does not define me as a person, that is something I have learned the older I have got – I'm a dad, a husband and a friend first.

"I love playing for England and I'm very lucky to do so but whether I get nought or 100 it does not define who I am at home.

"The more you play, the more you go through highs and lows and this has been a tricky little period for me.

"Regardless of what happens after this Test match is irrelevant – if it is my last game or not. I can sit here whatever happens in the future and know I gave everything.

"I have no regrets, I have given everything to the England shirt, to the Warwickshire shirt and I can be very happy with my life."