I did it in my book (free shipping).

I’ve never quite gotten Ian Bell.  Aesthetically he is a pretty picture.  Square jawed, cap always bent in a very good arc, dreamy eyes, and a cover drive that could test your sexuality.

The problem is, that was all he had.

There have been fewer batsmen I’ve ever seen who could put an innings together as bad as he does.  Instead of building a base for a long stay, he seemed to just be out there because that is where he was.  Like a kid out the front of a shopping centre.

Today he crafted an innings.

He could have done more, much more.  But that he did anything at all was pretty impressive.

I keep being told that South Africa was the making of Ian Bell; he averaged 44 in that series.

I don’t know what made him, but he is different.  There is a brain and planning behind that sexy little drive now.

His 76 today wasn’t from accidental crease occupation.

There could be a time soon when the Grisham of the 30 odds no longer makes those scores.  He could just make real test innings like someone of his talent should.  And not just against Bangladesh, but real places with test cricketers in their teams.

One day it could be a waste to over get him naked, lube him up and put him in the oversized birdcage, literally or otherwise.

Forget for a moment that Dirk looks like he would rather be anywhere else than the photo shoot.

And even forget that Lebara have found the cheapest no name shirts they could for the ad, and think about what this could have been.

It is placed above the piss troughs at the grounds, it should be Dirk with a shit eating grin on his face, pointing his camera down like he is taking a picture of your cock, while Vaas and Saqlain kick the shit out of someone in a chicken suit in the back ground.

Some people just don’t have the flare for advertising that we do.

In honour of Jesus dying I’ve compiled an XI of players who died, and were then reborn, or you know, other Christian type shit. Jesus, as we all know, was a wicket keeper.

S Katich – Found himself in a cricket career cave due to some horrific test form, but then his God, Bob Simpson, helped him, and thankfully we now have Katich shuttling around the crease for days on end.

M Sinclair – Impossible as it is to enjoy the way he plays, Sinclair is the one cricketer most likely to survive Sodom and Gomorrah. When the Kiwis are having a selectorial apocalypse, it is Sinclair they turn to. He will always live with us.

I Bell – If Bell truly was the son of God, Christianity would have died out by now. Instead Bell seems ordained by some higher power, perhaps Murdoch, to play the number 3 position for England. He coveted it while he had to wait out Pestilence (Shah), War (Bopara) and Famine (Trott) but he found his way back to number three.

M Hussey – Has never left heavenly earth, but what exactly was he doing between the age of 12 and 30.

K Pietersen – An outcast with his old religion he became the father, son and holy bail of a new one. It still hasn’t been smooth sailing, but he no longer has to bowl off spin, so that is good.

K Akmal – Crucified on the pitch for one of the most heretical displays of wicket keeping ever written about. But he will be back, you can’t keep a Pakistani cricketer away for too long. Even if he comes back as a kolpak.

A Flintoff – as was written.

N Hauritz – Outbowled by M Clarke and then shunned by his country, his state, and his knew state. One day four wise men decided to pick him up from the gutter he found himself in, and bugger me if he hasn’t stayed around since then.

S Bond – Needed to go on a spiritual adventure to India so that one day he could come back to New Zealand and tell them he was available for white ball games and then continued his spiritual adventure in India.

A Mendis – The man is full of mystery, but once you work it out, it is all kind of simple and you don’t really care anymore.

A Nehra – From a world cup final to the great abyss, but thanks to Lalit K, Nehra has been brought back so that we can all pray at his long limbs and permanent angry face.

J Patel (12th) – Is so good at being 12th man I couldn’t see why he wouldn’t do it for Jesus.

If the apocalypse were to come tomorrow, most of us would be dead. But if Hollywood has taught us anything it is that people always survive. While Kallis, Ponting and Dhoni wouldn’t make it, there would be cricketers who would. And it isn’t always the most popular or talented who survive the end times.

Nathan Hauritz cannot be killed by bombs or global pandemics. This is a man who couldn’t get picked for his state side, averaged over 50 with the ball in first-class cricket, and now averages 30 in Test cricket. There are no weapons that can keep him down. After the apocalypse he would just roam the earth with that sweet little boyish face of his.

Ashish Nehra went through a career apocalypse, but he is back. I wouldn’t bet on him struggling to survive a worldwide nuclear war. He’d still have that look on his face too, the one that makes you wonder if he has any joy in his life. He’d be in a group that lives in Euro Disney; his role would be of the angry one who doesn’t trust anyone, but he’d be rubbish at catching food.

Kumar Sangakkara would make it through. Then, after an appropriate period, he would take over the world. Artists would carve images of him, people would refer to him as King Kumar, and he would be a fair and just leader. His leadership does have problems, but his suaveness and massive intellect mean he would run the world for at least six years. Until he wants to relax and travel.

Ian Bell can never be killed. Regardless of an apocalypse he is going to be around forever. Still looking good and not making runs. In a dystopian wasteland he’d still manage to find his way into a well-stocked mansion, with others doing the work to make up for him. Even when the whole group dies of food poisoning, Bell survives. He is like a mythical creature that way.

Brendan Nash would not only survive an apocalypse, he’d prosper. Once the world had settled, Nash would move to a new location and just tell them he was always one of them. There would be hostility towards him at first, and mild curiosity, but eventually in this new and desperate land he would come in handy and people would even start to love having him around.

Paul Harris would survive. He might mutate a bit, but like a cockroach or a tax officer he cannot be eradicated. Harris will quickly improvise and become an expert scavenger and sell his goods at a reasonable price, considering the location he lives in.

The New Zealand cricket team would remain okay. They would be watching Eagle v Shark in Chris Martin’s basement when the flesh-eating disease spreads rapidly across the planet, killing everyone. Upon exiting the basement they would have some good times and some bad times, but basically they’d just survive. Even though 90% of the world’s population is dead, their crowd numbers in Test matches stay the same.

Rahul Dravid would never even notice the apocalypse. When the aliens came to kill everyone on the planet with their sonic weapons, he was batting. As we know, when Rahul is batting, nothing can stir him. Even two years after the apocalypse he is still out there, marking his guard, trying to get the sight screen to be moved and planning for what field the captain will set for the next ball.

Buy the book, get a t-shirt, or donate to the whisky fund.

We would also accept some tasteful garden furniture.

It involved radical tactics, a run rate of 5, two leg slips, Andrew Strauss bowling leg spin, and KP actually making runs.

Then they got serious and started talking about how to draw.

Their dream scenario was for Graham Onions to secure a 9 wicket draw, Onions now considers himself a batsman, perhaps because his bowling average is getting higher, and thought that a 9 wicket draw was a good idea.

You can’t even bet on a 9 wicket draw on most cricket online betting places.

So the plan is simple for England, work yourself into a position you can’t win from, and then save the game at the last minute.

Thus winning the hearts and trophy all in one go.

If this were the IPL England would probably try and draft Fidel Edwards in for just such an assignment.

Instead they will have to do the job with (or without if the rumours are true) their 9 wicket man Onions and the regulars.

Paul Collingwood was born during on May 26, 1976 when magically the English football (soccer) and cricket teams both drew at the exact time he was nudged out of his mother’s womb.

Andrew Strauss has the hair cut of a man who thinks a draw is as good as a win.

Alastair Cook is built for comfort and not for speed.

And Jimmy Anderson modelled his batting style on a coma patient he visited once.

It is an all star draw team.

Even Ian Bell now gets down and dirty covering his once naked oiled body with a male mudpack he saw advertised in Men’s Health.

So there is no chance England can go for a win, it would only ruin their best chance of claiming the series.

Leave aside the minor details such as ‘How hard would the punch be?’ or ‘But doesn’t Jrod punch like a girl?’ and consider whether this would be a wrong thing to do.

Bell is small, ginger, supports Aston Villa and went to a very minor public school. On any level, he’s an endangered species. Is right to inflict more violence upon him than a legion of cricket journalists have managed since 2004?

Post your thoughts below. Meanwhile, I’m off to watch Jrod dropkick a panda.

Is you so stupid that you thought IanBellMBE on twitter was actually Ian Bell?

Is it even possible there is someone that stupid on this planet?

Probably.

But still, if some mouth breathing inbred fucktard is too stupid to work out that this was a fake twitter account, let them believe it, because soon they will die eating the stuff that comes in show boxes.

There is no reason to release this:

Ofcourse it is fake, it has MBE in the title for fucksakes.

It says that he plays for England sometimes.

According to it Ian Bell is getting tips from Lagaan.

Seriously ECB, use your time more constructively.

Make better pitches.

Make sure Bell, Bopara and Ramps can handle the tough nature of test cricket.

Accredit me for important series.

Don’t waste your time on this piddly assed shit.

That is why we do it.

All those starts, all those early finishes.

But there were few more committed innings than the one Bell played over the last 3 days.

From the start he was set on going out playing across the line, and no umpiring interference was going to stop that.

Four times he played across the line to balls moving in, twice being saved by Random Rudi, and once getting a bee’s dick of wood on it.

Most players would have given up and looked for another way to get out, not Belly.

This was special, something that required him to really put his head down and earn doggedly.

And he did.

He has grown up. His game has a new found edge to it. He is a steel bell.

This was a special 51, mark it down, I expect great things from this man.

There is a poetic nature to it.

And while some ill informed cricket fans think this makes you a shit batsman, the opposite is true.

Ian Bell is like the John Grisham of the 30/40 odd.

They are all roughly the same, a few cover drives, tight footwork, hitting the ball to the fielder at will, and then out.

We all know them, even if we don’t all care for them.

You might say he is repetitive, but each of these 30/40 odds has a different setting, different baddies, and sometimes even different costumes.

Sure Bell and Grisham are pushing the one trick as far as they can, but it is their specialty, any wavering from the script would result in mass panic from their fans.

Bell has experimented more than Grisham, even producing an existential manuscript of 199 against South Africa.

It left the fans in a quandary, they had grown to love/despise him for his trademark innings, and this brazen attempt to cross genre left them feeling empty inside.

Today there is a twist, having tried to go out for 20 odd (sometimes you have to rush one out for the masses) he now finds a twist coming.

Should he embrace it and write an epic, or should he go back to what he does best.

This has all the hallmarks on an epic, the come back, the luck, playing at his home ground, and the Ashes, but the pull of the familiar cannot be underestimated.

The man is an artist, but sometimes you have to please your fans.

I know how Bell feels, even as I type this I realise that some of you are saying, “Jrod, this is fine, but where is the gratuitous sex and casual swearing.”

Sometime you have to please yourself (not a masturbation joke) and Bell could just do that today like Grisham did with playing for pizza.

If he does, I will miss his 30/40 odds.