Bell comes up with a sound century

By G. Viswanath

MUMBAI, JAN. 10. There was the first note of alarm bells from a batsman with a surname Bell who was ready to challenge and in fact batted admirably against the Indian spinners on a true pitch at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.

The England Under-19's captain Ian Bell (109, 18 x 4s), who has not yet been capped by Warwickshire, made a splendid and chanceless century that helped his team gain a handy first innings lead of 34 runs. The visitors ended their first innings at 281 for nine wickets, an effective and convincing knock from their captain, making it a successful journey in the first Test for the second day running.

The home team must be disappointed that it was not able to finish off the England under-19 first innings by stumps on Wednesday. It had raised the levels from a semblance of a fight back to a real contest in the hour before lunch with left- arm spinner Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan holding a smart catch of a hard swat back from Gary Pratt and flattening the off-stump of Ian Pattison, who shouldered arms to a delivery that came in with the arm. And when off-spinner Mulewa Dharmichand struck, forcing Kadeer Ali play to Alind Naidu at short leg, England slipped from a formidable looking 107 for one to 134 for four wickets.

England resumed its first innings at 24 for no loss and the openers, left-handed Pratt and Nicky Peng, looked in good nick, the latter in particular. The right-hander was compact in defence and sure while attacking, six boundary shots in his 65 minute tenure in the middle proving it. He was adjudged run out by umpire S.K. Sharma, the doubt arising out of whether the bowler Siddharth Trivedi had flicked the bails with or without the ball in hand.

Peng's dismissal at 43 in the sixth over of the morning brought Bell into the scene. He was determined to confront the spinners, both Sivaramakrishnan and Dharmichand. While Pratt was willing to stay put, Bell came down the pitch to pick Dharmichand on the full and drive trough the `V' and straight. There was not much bounce or turn Dharmichand managed to get, yet he gave little away in his first spell, maintaining a good line and length. Bell saw wickets tumbling after he had Pratt put on 64 for the second wicket.

Wicketkeeper Mark Wallace gave good company for Bell, adding 41 for the fifth wicket, which Sivaramakrishnan broke having Wallace held by Naidu in the leg trap. The England innings fortunes was from this stage literally in the hands of Bell, who batted for 18 minutes short of four hours to make a fine 109. He had hooked medium-pacer Nitin Agarwal to reach his second century in ten Tests for England Under-19. The lower order batsmen Robert Ferley and Kyle Hogg made 52 runs, a sizeable contribution after the visitors were 214 for six.

The scores:

India Under-19 - 1st innings: 257

England Under-19 - 1st innings: G. Pratt c & b Sivarmakrishnan 28, N. Peng (run out) 30, I. Bell b Agarwal 109, K. Ali c Naidu b Dharmichand 11, I. Pattison b Sivaramakrishnan 1, M. Wallace c Naidu b Sivaramakrishnan 13, R. Ferley lbw b Khadkikar 29, K. Hogg (run out) 23, J. Bishop (batting) 13, A. McGarry lbw b Agarwal 4, M. Panesar (batting) 1, Extras (b-3, lb-2, nb-14) 19; Total (for nine wkts in 107 overs) 281.

Fall of wickets: 1-43, 2-107, 3-122, 4- 134, 5-175, 6-214, 7-259, 8-260, 9-274.

India Under-19 bowling: Trivedi 11-3-30- 0, Agarwal 18-3-55-2, Dharmichand 29-9-75-1, Sivaramakrishnan 29- 5-83-3, Khadkikar 11- 2-16-1, Ganda 9-2-17-0.

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