Ian Bell joins Derbyshire's backroom staff as batting consultant

Former England batter and five-time Ashes champion Ian Bell has been roped in as Derbyshire's batting consultant. Bell will serve the role for the first two months of the upcoming county season, replacing Mal Loye in the role. Moreover, the batting veteran will provide his services to Head of Cricket Mickey Arthur and assistant coach Ajmal Shahzad.

The Warwickshire stalwart played an instrumental part for England's national team, which earned the number 1 spot in Test rankings in 2011. In his international career spanning over 11 years, the right-hander amassed 7,727 runs in 118 Tests at an average of 42.69, including 22 hundreds. Apart from this, Bell's white-ball career was marvellous as he scored 5,416 runs from 161 ODIs.

The 39-year-old said, "As a young coach, the opportunity to learn from one of the biggest names in the game was massive. Mickey has big plans for the future of Derbyshire, and I'm excited to be part of it for the next couple of months.

"I had my first session with the team yesterday, and there's a lot of talent there. Now it's about making sure that it's always on show across all formats. Between them, our batters have more than 100 all-formats centuries, and there's the ability to make big scores; my job is to help them to continue progressing and perform at their best."

Meanwhile, Arthur has lavished praise on Bell's astonishing career and said, "As a player, Ian had a career that any batter would be proud of. It will be a great opportunity for our players to learn from him and develop under his coaching.

The former England batter, which Ian bell curtained down his career in 2020, has had a short coaching career stint with Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash League and another with Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred. Bell has also given his services to the England U-19 cricket team.