Ian Bell puts England in charge of New Zealand tour match

Queenstown, New Zealand: This is the ground where even the end without the backdrop of The Remarkables (which sounds like a Motown group) is pretty spectacular. Until Ian Bell took charge of the England innings though, there had been little remarkable about their first foray into red ball cricket since before Christmas.

This was perhaps not the easiest pitch on which to find the Test match sea legs after a two-month diet of one-day cricket — sluggish, nibbly and with little carry, in the manner that over the decades has encouraged so many Kiwi medium pacers. By the close of another wonderful sunny day though, in an almost unbroken sequence that has seen the north of the country declared an official drought area, Bell had shown that all the net practice in the world cannot compete with time in the middle.

His unbeaten 127, over more than four and three-quarter hours on Wednesday was virtually flawless, save a few occasions where the seam bit and the ball jagged past his bat, and once, as the day reached its end, where Mark Gillespie will swear blind he had him caught at the wicket with the second new ball. He reached his hundred in a delightfully Bellish way by cover driving Gillespie, a prospective seamer for the first Test, as elegantly as anyone in the game could manage, for his 13th boundary, and there were five more besides.

Promise too came from Alastair Cook, the machine, who spent more than two-and-a-half hours accumulating 60, with 11 boundaries driven and lacerated square, until he slashed a little too vigorously outside offstump and edged to the keeper to give one of the opening bowlers, Neil Wagner, a wicket. Four runs before his dismissal, Cook, driving hard, had edged a scorcher head high to first slip, where Neil Broom felt it burst through his hands and rebound from his face and over the top of second slip, who was unable to make ground and complete the catch. The dazed fielder left for the dressing room.

Later there was another promising innings from Joe Root, who made 49 before finding his stumps deficient to the tune of one, which was laying on the ground several yards away, he and Bell having added 97 for the fifth wicket. After which Matt Prior, a day beyond his 31st birthday, produced a typically brisk cameo of 41 at all but a run a ball, before he was taken at point to give Jimmy Neesham a fourth wicket.

All was not well at the top of the order, however, for the loss of Nick Compton, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen, in a scrappy, quirky half-hour’s play, with only 81 on the board, was followed by Cook as well, at 124. That meant they were in a spot of strife, albeit a situation from which they were able to extricate themselves as the ball got older and softer, and any moisture in the pitch was sucked away by the sun.

Clearly Compton is being given the opportunity to further his Test career after a series in India in which he showed a capacity to occupy the crease without being able to convert it into something substantial. There had been some serious selectorial discussion on whether this was the best option both in the short and longer term and the decision was to stick with the top seven that had played in the final Test in Nagpur. Only time will tell if this is a shrewd move or an act of faith too far, but one day, there is no question that Cook and Root will form a formidable opening pair.

As expected, Steve Finn, in order to ensure his fitness, was omitted after some inspirational bowling in the ODI series, and he was joined on the sidelines by Jimmy Anderson, leaving the seam bowling to be done by Stuart Broad, Graham Onions and Chris Woakes, with the first two expected to battle it out for the third seamer’s spot for the first Test at University Oval in Dunedin on March 6.