Bell left hoping for another England chance

Geoff Miller, the national selector, called for Ian Bell to show even more passion about earning an England recall and there was certainly emotion from Bell as he responded to his omission from the Test squad to face West Indies at Lord's.

Bell started the season with scores of 172 and 108 for Warwickshire, after being told to go back and score big runs following his axe on the tour of the Caribbean, and has now been left wondering what he needs to do after Ravi Bopara was preferred at No. 3.

"The message I got coming back from the West Indies was to score big hundreds and make sure you hit the ground running, which is what I thought I'd done," he said. "So I thought I was in a good position, but I now have to keep working and keep scoring runs in county cricket."

The selectors are clearly of the view that Bell's break for the Test arena hasn't been long enough for him to show that he is deserving of another chance. There is a lingering suspicion that he lacks the temperament to be a No. 3 and he has always been more at home in the middle order.

Bell now needs to score a mountain of runs at domestic level, beginning with the current tour match for England Lions against the West Indians, and also needs Bopara to flop at his new position, to have a chance of a recall later in the summer. But he is fearful that the county schedule will work against him with one-day cricket dominating the calendar for much of May.

"The problem I have now is the way the fixtures are set out," he said. "I have this four-day match with the England Lions, we have a Championship match against Yorkshire next week and then there is a month of Twenty20 cricket.

"So there's not a lot of time and opportunity to go and score big hundreds in four-day cricket and push to get your place back in the Test team."

He will have a late chance to push for Ashes selection when the Championship resumes in June while the World Twenty20 is taking place and certainly hasn't given up on taking his place at Cardiff on July 8.

"It's a long summer and there's a lot of cricket coming up. Just because I'm not picked in this Test match now doesn't mean I won't be playing in the Ashes and I've got to keep believing that I can and believe if I keep scoring the runs then I've got a chance of playing."