Should Ian Bell bat at number 3 for England?

or at 6

he said will get his groove back IF KP was at the odda end !

regardless of the #   

As I laid out in the thread on Ian Bell last week, he shouldn't be in the team. An average of 31 over the last 2 years and 30 over the last year is not good enough for a top order batsman. Get Bairstow in there. England can't afford to keep being 50/3.

Bairstow's in at Balance's expense

poms would be then unbalanced

I don't like the decision to drop Ballance and keep Bell in the side. Yes, Ballance's back-foot technique has been exposed by the quicks of New Zealand and Australia, but even with this, his numbers are vastly superior to Bell's over the last 12 months. Bell has averaged 30.94 to Ballance's 44.70. Over their last 15 Tests, Bell has 2 centuries and 4 fifties; Ballance has 4 centuries and 6 fifties.

Yes, Ballance has only one score of 30+ in his last 10 innings, but the same can be said of Bell, one score of 30+ in his last 10 innings. Both are out of form, but Bell's form has been in serious decline for the last 2 years. Bell should have been discarded prior to the tour of the Caribbean.