London, Aug 20: Batting at No. 3, England batsman Ian Bell scored his maiden double century at the Oval in the fourth Test match against India. Enjoying a great run in the series in a new batting position, Bell had earlier scored 159 runs in the second Test match at Nottingham.

Bell spoke to the media about his batting at the end of Day 3. Excerpts:

On whether he was enjoying batting at No. 3

Yeah, definitely. I have had a bit [of experience] in the past when I probably was a little bit younger [and] probably wasn’t good enough to do it […] If the opportunity comes around in the future, [I would] look to grab it.

On whether he was ready to return to the No. 5 spot once Jonathan Trott was back in the team

Definitely, I am a flexible batsman […] if I have to bat at No. 5, I would be looking forward to that challenge, and if I have to bat at No. 3, I would look forward to that challenge as well. But we’ve got a good strong squad […]

On coach Graham Gooch’s influence

I love working with Graham Gooch. The last two years Gooch has been back with the England team and he has been fantastic. He really drives everyone, not just to score hundreds but big hundreds like he [Alastair Cook] said, ‘daddy hundreds’ and [Gooch] always did that in his career and he is really pushing the batting unit to do that. And like Cooky said last week and Kevin Pietersen [too said], [he is] just good [at] pushing the guys. You see other guys doing it [scoring big hundreds] and you want to do it yourself. We have a very competitive batting unit coached by Graham Gooch. I just love working with him day in and day out; it’s fantastic.

On Gooch’s coaching style

We don’t talk a lot about technique […] but we work at making the nets hard, we make preparation and practice very hard. It’s a match situation all the time [and] you never know when you will get a bouncer. When you go out in the middle, it makes you that little bit more comfortable. Test cricket is a very hard game and [Gooch] makes everyone work very hard.