Cricket World Cup 2011: England batsman Ian Bell only has eyes for beating Sri Lanka in quarter-final

Ian Bell has been wedded to the England cricket team since the beginning of November, since then he has played every game for them.

Eyes on the ball: England batsman Ian Bell (left) is relishing the prospect of Saturday's quarter-final against Sri Lanka

He gets married properly, to fiancée Chantal, four days after the World Cup final, but his “first wife” has a few more demands on him before that, starting with Saturday’s quarter-final against Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Logic would suggest that playing an Asian side at home, after India’s win against West Indies on Sunday ensured England finished third in their group, would be the least welcome option, but Andrew Strauss’s team have recently won an entire one-day series in Sri Lanka back in 2007, and Bell says he is relishing the prospect.

“I’m very excited,” said Bell, as he and his team mates enjoyed another day off in Delhi. “As a group that’s the one place we would quite like to go to be honest. It’s a good place and we had a bit of success there from the last one-day tour.

“When you get to a quarter-final and come up against a confident side it is tough whether it’s Pakistan in Dhaka or Sri Lanka in Colombo, but I’m very happy it’s the latter.”

Bell’s enthusiasm appears slightly misplaced, at least at the forbidding R Premadasa stadium, where Sri Lanka play their one-day matches in Colombo.

In his two matches there against Sri Lanka he managed 25 in England’s sole victory and 11. That England success was one of the rare occasions a side batting second has won there under floodlights. There was another victory, against Zimbabwe in the 2002 Champions Trophy, but a record that so far stands at played six and lost four hardly supports his confidence.

“It will be tough,” conceded Bell. “Sri Lanka are as good as any team in the world at the moment. Having played with Kumar Sangakkara at Warwickshire I have seen the quality of him.

"Mahela Jayawardene is also good and there are other fine players and experienced leaders there. I guess in the quarter-finals of a World Cupyou are going to come up against the best teams and it is up to us to put together the performances now.”

England have blown hot and cold in this tournament and there is the suspicion they are exhausted after an emotional winter where an Ashes victory on Australian soil trumped everything else their careers.

Bell has played in every game, a total of 60 days cricket most of it high intensity, with sapping travel thrown in. Surely fatigue is the dominant factor?

“No, I don’t think so,” said Bell. “The quarter-final of a World Cup doesn’t come around very often and we have to be up for it. It has been a long winter but by the time we turn up for the quarter-final we will be ready to give everything. You saw against the West Indies how desperate we are to win and that is a really good sign regardless of what has happened in the past few months.

“It’s not what has gone that matters, it is what is to come that we focus on, though there is no point looking too far ahead. We did that well in the Ashes. We have three games to win it so that looks quite nice, but we don’t need to look beyond Sri Lanka. If we put in a good performance there we will take a lot of confidence from it.”

Bell needs to be dominant in that, though there is still the suggestion he is uncertain of his worth. Having tried just about every spot between one and seven in the order, he is England’s utility batsman, though you wonder whether that is a compliment to his versatility or a sign that he has never really nailed down any one role.

So far this World Cup he has batted at four, averaging a typically Bell-like 36.6 from six games, with two scores over fifty. He has opened in both 50 and 20-over cricket before and with England still casting about for the right man to partner Andrew Strauss out here Bell on Sunday volunteered himself for the role.

“I’ve not really had a long run at any position for a while,” said Bell. “I want to nail the number four spot, no doubt, but if I got the opportunity to open again I would be excited about that as well. It’s not my decision, but I will do whatever I can for this team. At the moment my skills of playing spin have kept me in the middle order but I do enjoy opening as well.”

Along with Eoin Morgan, Bell looks England’s most complete batsman, though unlike Morgan, who is suffering what the team management are calling a manageable shoulder problem, he tends to stick with orthodox shots. Trouble is that despite looking the bee’s knees at the crease, he doesn’t often produce the concomitant amount of honey.

He can start to put that right this Saturday and then who knows, a stag do in Bombay with Graeme Swann and a stripper dancing around the World Cup. You heard it here first.

Magical Murali can still cast a spell on England

Tuk-tuk for Murali?
An England win will spell the end of Muttiah Muralitharan’s international career.

The incentive for the loose-limbed magician at Colombo’s R Premadasa Stadium, is huge, though, for Sri Lanka’s semi-final would be at the same venue.

He’s 39 next month, surely he is not the force he was ...
Actually Murali’s form in this tournament is holding up nicely. He has taken 11 wickets at only 14.18 apiece, with a dazzling economy rate of 3.54. That has taken him to 64 World Cup wickets overall at 3.79 runs per over. He needs eight to elbow Glenn McGrath aside and take his World Cup record.

England should be OK if they see him off, though ...
Errr, no, England’s batsmen should have their steel-enforced toecaps at the ready to combat some round-armed yorkers, as Lasith 'the slinger’ Malinga has also taken seven for 127 in the tournament.

And the home batting?
The top four look formidable. Captain Kumar Sangakkara has scored the most runs in the tournament, 363 (at an average of 111, with a strike-rate of 88.75), just ahead of Jon Trott (336) and Andrew Strauss (329). Openers Upul Tharanga (286 at 52.20) and Tillakaratne Dilshan (286 at 47.66) have also batted well, posting a stand of 282 v Zimbabwe. At No 4, comes classy Mahela Jayawardene (100 V Canada). Sangakkara (111) and Jayawardene (66) starred in the 112-run win over New Zealand, as did Murali (four for 25). That re-established Sri Lanka’s credentials to repeat their 1996 triumph.

Cricket World Cup quarter-finals

Wednesday
Pakistan v West Indies, Mirpur (8.30am).

Thursday
India v Australia, Ahmedabad (9am).

Friday
New Zealand v South Africa, Mirpur (8.30am).

Saturday
Sri Lanka v England, Colombo (9am).