New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum has tipped Ian Bell to succeed at number three as England seek to bounce back from their Lord's trouncing in the Third Ashes Test in Edgbaston.
Bell scored one and 11 as England collapsed to a 405-run defeat inside four days at HQ to enable Australia to level the five-match series at 1-1.
The margin of defeat, after England had so impressively won the opening encounter in Cardiff by 169 runs, prompted head coach Trevor Bayliss and his selectors to make changes to England's misfiring top order ahead of the third Test, which gets under way in Birmingham on Wednesday.
Bell has had a disappointing Ashes series to date, scoring just 73 runs in four Ashes innings this summer, but England have promoted the 33-year-old Warwickshire batsman up the order and McCullum has tipped him to shine on his home ground.
"I have said before that I felt Joe Root should be England's No 3, but Ian Bell is the next best option," the New Zealander wrote in his Daily Mail column.
"He's a classy batsman who's been there, done it and got the T-shirt: 112 Tests and 22 hundreds are figures we'd all love. I firmly believe it will work well for him.
"The challenge of moving up a place to No 3, where he has hardly batted at all in the past couple of years, should reinvigorate him. It will give him a chance to dictate play, not react to it."
McCullum, whose Black Caps drew a two-match Test series against Alastair Cook's side earlier in the summer, believes Bell's vast international experience should stand him in good stead against the likes of Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood this week.
"I know Bell hasn't scored the runs he'd have liked in recent Tests, but you have to be very sure that the guy you're bringing in to replace him is ready to go and up to the task," Birmingham Bears star McCullum added.
"Whenever New Zealand have played against England, we have always regarded him as a very big wicket and I'm sure the Australians feel the same - especially after the three hundreds he got against them in the 2013 series here.
"I was interested to see that his career record against us is worse than against other sides: he averages 28 in Tests against New Zealand. That surprised me, because my perception of him is as one of the classiest batsmen in the game."
Source: PA
