Bells career really started with the England Under-19 team who toured New Zealand in the winter of 1998. Here, Bell made 91 in the first test, followed up by a century in the third. It was these performances that led Hadlee to his comments. Bell was made captain of the under-19's in 2000, and it was only a matter of time before he made his senior bow. On Bell's debut in first-class cricket he failed to get on the run-sheet, and didn't play again until England-A played the Leeward Islands in 2000/01. Bell's first taste of Test cricket was in 2001/02 in New Zealand, where he brought into the squad as a replacement for the injured Mark Butcher, and he made his full debut in 2004 against the West Indies. Here, he only batted in one innings, but managed to score 70 runs. In Bell's domestic season, he scored over 1,700 runs, at nearly an average of 70, yet he was ignored for Englands tour of South Africa. He was, however, picked for Englands two-test series against Bangladesh, where a score of 162no in the second test took his Test average to 297. Bell retained his place for the Ashes series in the summer of 2005, but like many others faltered against the spin of Shane Warne and the accuracy of Glenn McGrath. Despite scoring half-centuries in both innings of the 3rd test, he finished with just 171 runs to his name, at a poor average of 17.1. This led to many calls for him to be left out of the winter tour to Pakistan, but he was included after Michael Vaughan pulled out through injury. In the 3 match series Bell went some way to recovering his form before the summer, finishing with an average of 52.16, including a century and two half-centuries. It was also during this series that Bell took his first international wicket, getting Mohammad Yousuf caught and bowled. In subsequent tour of India though, Bell's form fell away again, scoring just 131 runs in 6 innings, at an average of 22. This did include a half century in the 2nd test, and in the final test, Bell opened the batting, an unfamiliar position for him

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