England captain Alastair Cook shares his thoughts on Ian Bell and the batting order ahead of the tour of South Africa at London's Heathrow airport on Thursday (10th December).

SOUNDBITE (English) Alastair Cook, England captain (on speaking with Ian Bell)

"I have spoken to him (Ian Bell) and yeah, obviously it was an interesting 'phone call. All I got from it was how desperate he was to come back, because you know, a great encouragement for a player of his class who's done so much over a long period that he's still hungry - at 33 - to come back into the side and prove to everyone again what a great player he is and I suppose that's he challenge of cricket, isn't it? No matter what you've got, no matter how many runs you've scored or how many times you've played for England, how many hundreds you've got, you always try and improve yourself again and he's up for that challenge, which is, again, exiting to have, I think, a fully refreshed Ian back in the selection running."

SOUNDBITE (English) Alastair Cook, England captain (on England's batting order)

"We haven't quite got a settled top seven, there's no doubt about that. The runs we're averaging as a... I think we're down in sixth or seventh or even eighth in terms of what we're producing as a top order and that is causing us sometimes to play a lot of catch-up in a game, so with Gary (Ballance) coming back, with Nick (Compton) coming back, they've had a taste of it (Test cricket) before, then there's a real opportunity for people to stake their claim alongside Alex Hales... I think we know that Joe Root will be batting at four, yu know, there's an opportunity for people to put their hands up and make a name for themselves."