Different Strokes

I've known Matt since we were both young men, both of us trying to break into First Grade cricket in Brisbane. I was a couple of years senior to him and had already played for the first team when he burst on to the scene and "announced himself". And I mean, announced himself. Whereas my goals, in keeping with my talent, were fairly modest, Matt suffered from no such inferiority complex. Blessed with enormous self-confidence, a powerful physique and a work ethic to match, I watched this young pup write his own autobiography in his mind and then fulfill it. It was quite a bizarre way to live the dream - he wrote the script, convinced himself that it was his destiny and, despite many who doubted him, went on to live the dream.

Early doors, I must confess that I feared for this perceived arrogance. As the runs piled up, after he predicted they would, that fear grew into a kind of morbid admiration. I realised soon enough that his self-belief wasn't so much arrogance as utter confidence in himself. I shared too many dressing rooms with him early in his career to put it down to a fluke. The guy was just on a different planet when it came to making bold statements about scoring big runs and then backing it up in totally emphatic fashion. When he returned to the dressing room to our congratulations, his reaction suggested there was no relief or sense of vindication in his own mind. It was more like a sense of "well, what did you expect? I told you I'd get some today. What's so surprising about that"?

Some were openly hostile and pointed to his career ODI strike-rate as proof that he was not and could not be an effective opening batsman in limited-over cricket. Following the disappointing World Cup campaign, the last thing that the ODI squad needed was a lame duck captain who had clearly only been given the job so that he could gain some captaincy experience before taking the reins of the Test side. I had considerable sympathy with that view, but was prepared to wait and see.

But when England went to Sri Lanka a couple of years later, it was very different. In the first Test at Galle Jayawardene came in at 5 to join Marvan Atapattu, who was on his way to a double hundred, following the dismissal of Aravinda de Silva for a typically stylish hundred of his own. In such a healthy position, he obviously had a bit of licence to play his shots, which he proceeded to do – and I was captivated.

Bell clearly deserved the cachet of a Test century, and it would have stored up untold resentment if Andrew Strauss had denied him the few balls he needed for it. The England squad are genuine fans of each other and would all have wanted him to get it.