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Ian Bell v David Boon

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  • Total voters
    18
Line and Length

Line and Length

Cricketer Of The Year
My immediate reaction was to say Boon but this is tighter than I thought when checking their careers. Bell played in 11 more Tests (118 to 107) and this contributed to him having more centuries and fifties (22/46 to 21/32). On averages Boon just shades Bell (43.65 to 42.69).

Boon made an impressive enough debut in the mid '80s against the impressive West Indies' pace attack. However, early in his career, he was found wanting against spin due to slow footwork. It was after his promotion to opener that Boon blossomed playing some fine knocks and, in India, he cast aside doubts about his ability to play spin. He hit is peak in the 1993 Ashes series in England with centuries in 3 consecutive Tests. However his form declined in the mid '90s and he retired.

Bell's Test career was a bit of a roller-coaster ride. Debuting against the West Indies and with follow-up Tests against Bangladesh Bell went into the first Ashes Test in 2005 with a Test average of 297, rising to 303 just before he was out, the sixth highest average at any point of a player's career of all time. However he averaged just 17.1 in that Ashes series. He continued his Test career, witth various peaks and troughs, until 2015 against Pakistan.

Any comparison of the pair needs to be in the context of their performances against the various Test playing nations.

Boon was at his best against India (ave 70.82), New Zealand (47.48) and England (45.65) while he was less impressive against Pakistan (23.94), Sri Lanka (32.87) and the West Indies (39.92).

Bell was most successful against Bangladesh (105.50), Sri Lanks (58.00) and the West Indies (55.10) and less so against New Zealand (32.56), Australia (36.83) and South Africa (41.52).

Purely on Ashes performances I would lean towards David Boon though purists might say Ian Bell was, technically, a better bat.
 
stephen

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Bell's only run scoring shot was the grade cricket drive to third man. Boon was the only batsman who stood up and scored some runs against a rampaging Ambrose in 92 on the 7/1 test. Arguably if Boon had been on strike for the majority of that spell Ambrose wouldn't have taken a wicket.
 
vcs

vcs

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Bell was frustrating in his time but I look back on him more fondly these days. His career best work came in Ashes 2013 with his hundred in the low-scoring 4th Test the highlight. He even seemed to play Mitch Johnson with ease at times in the return series and had much more time to play him compared to the rest of the batsmen.
 
Flem274*

Flem274*

123/5
ian bell also suffers from being in the shadow of cook and kp, not to mention trotts hot streak and prior also being a keeper to go with his batting.

he also liked to get out in particularly gormless ways.

he also suffers from being english.

life hated him from the beginning.
 
Gnske

Gnske

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
lol sherminator haha

sad i'll never see him chip another ball to silly mid off on naught.
 
Bijed

Bijed

International Regular
Pothas said:
Always the way isn't it. He suffers a lot from playing in 2005, it really shaped his image as a player, sure there were plenty of faults in his career after that series but there was a lot of good as well.
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I've said it many times before, but Bell is actually really underappreciated imo, and I say that as someone who thinks that the highest accolade you could reasonably bestow on him is that he was a 'good' player. Everyone fails in tough situations sometimes, and everyone makes runs when the pressure is of at some point in their career and tbf with how his career started out in particular he, on the whole, was probably not enough of the former compared to the latter. But people seem to really attack his low-pressure runs as totally worthless and sometimes try to write-off his high pressure runs as an anomaly rather than giving him credit for them.

Basically, I tend to boil it down to: if England were somehow offered a choice that the career of the next batsmen they gave a test debut to would essentially mirror Ian Bell's, or could just be left open to fate as per usual, I can't honestly see anyone going for the latter choice.

Boon was better though.
 
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