Bell tolled for Ian as he was dropped from the Eng squad

www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/942217.html

Finally. This was long overdue. Ian Bell has been a wonderful servant to English cricket but he has not been up to Test standards for the last 2 years. This move should have been made prior to the series with New Zealand, but better late than never.

It will be interesting to see who replaces Bell at number three. I am glad to see Gary Ballance back in the squad - he is one option. Other options include moving Root up the order or Alex Hales with Nick Compton re-joining Cook at the top.

I am absolutely mystified as to why Samit Patel has been retained in the squad and Adil Rashid left out.

No Wood or Finn due to injuries hurt, and I am surprised that Plunkett failed to make the squad. I am pleased to see Footit's inclusion. He is one for the future.

Ian Bell , good luck for the future : truly a good man ! 

I think Kevin Pietersen has taken this news harder than Ian Bell himself:

www.cricket.com.au/news/kevin-pietersen-...th-africa/2015-11-19

So KP admits that Bell hasn't scored runs for a while and yet he should face one of the best bowling attacks of the last few years. That makes no sense. I can appreciate KP standing up for a mate, but how many runs do you get for experience? Who cares about experience. It's not as though that experience helped him to score runs over the last two years, and it certainly didn't help England avoid a 2-0 defeat to Pakistan either.

KP argument has been the same for Shiv

despite Shiv being dropped from the ODI squad , years prior