Cricket: Little Man on a High As Clones Take Stage

Ian Bell, a little man walking tall, richly deserved his place among England's four centurions yesterday. With his England Test place in the balance, it appeared that he was not merely facing a challenge from one Michael Vaughan, but two.

This startling fact had become apparent on the first day when a man immediately recognizable as Michael Vaughan rubbished suggestions that he should remain Test captain but relinquish the one-day job by stating: "We have tried a split captaincy and it doesn't work. The best thing is to get Michael Vaughan fit and playing well."

No wonder that Vaughan has been absent for so long. All the time, we imagined that he was recovering from injury when all the time the ECB has secretly been experimenting with cloning, perhaps relying upon the original Vaughan to captain the Test side and preferring an upgraded one, able to manoeuvre the ball into the gaps, in the one-day format.

It is a fair bet that Bell is now among the 90% of the public who oppose cloning. As well as two Michael Vaughans, it also came to light in an interview on Tuesday that there were two Owais Shahs. At least there is still only one Andrew Flintoff, who will play for Lancashire on Sunday as a specialist batsman.

Bell's place is remarkable shaky for a classy player with a Test average comfortably above 40. Everyone routinely complains about his lack of presence, but there is only so much that a little freckle-faced man can strut. If he had the audacity to refer himself in the third person everybody would burst out laughing, but he is more resilient than he looks.

He should follow the lesson of Alan Ladd, the post-war American actor, who disguised his small stature by getting his leading ladies to stand in a trench. It would at least help the West Indies bowlers to run up straight.

Quite why this American-inspired third-person nonsense is taking hold in cricket is difficult to determine. It grates because it sounds so egotistical, a habit beloved of rock musicians, actors and sports stars. But in Vaughan's case it may also be an attempt to split his personal and public life at a stressful time, an emotional need to observe his cricketing career objectively.

Nevertheless he would do better to avoid it. Mark Steel had it right about the third person in Reasons To Be Cheerful. When he spoke to Arthur Scargill about the miners' strike, third-person references abounded. A friend told Steel that he should have said: "This Arthur Scargill bloke sounds brilliant, mate. I'm going to have to go and talk to him because you're a wanker."

Matt Prior has also dabbled in third-person tendencies, and from him it sounds deliberately provocative, because he is a pugnacious competitor. A maiden Test hundred, the first by an England keeper on debut, made that abundantly clear.

England's last two wicketkeepers were routinely presented as opposites - one a keeping purist, the other a wicketkeeper-batsman - but Geraint Jones only seemed assertive when compared with Chris Read's delicate talents. Prior is naturally domineering, a prize-fighter among keepers, who relishes confrontation.

He clipped Dwayne Bravo off his legs shortly before tea for his first Test runs, then cranked up his innings with three muscular boundaries from one Bravo over. Against a flagging attack his belligerence was unabated. Matt Prior then did what Matt Prior does best. "So did I," Bell might have piped up when he reached his hundred moments later. "So did I."