Bell warns England against complacency

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Bell warns England against complacency

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England batsman Ian Bell has warned his world's top Test team of any complacency against Pakistan.

05 January,2012 04:51 am

Englands key middle-order batsman Ian Bell Wednesday warned his worlds top Test team of any complacency against Pakistan, saying their opponents pose a big challenge.England rose to number one in the ICC (International Cricket Council) rankings in August last year by blanking India 4-0 at home, but faces a big test in the series shifted to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to security fears in Pakistan.The 29-year-old right-handed batsman said England could not let up on the progress they had made.The need to avoid complacency is huge. We worked really hard to get to No.1 and it does not stop there, Bell told reporters, ahead of Englands opening three-day match against ICC Combined XI starting here from Saturday.They play another three-day match against the Pakistan Cricket Board XI -- also in Dubai -- from January 11-13 before the first of three Tests starts here from January 17.Bell said England have more to achieve.There are more things for us to achieve but for us we are hungry enough.We have had a nice break and the guys are looking forward to playing cricket now and we enjoy playing as a team and this is a big series for us, said Bell.England have not played a Test since beating India and were blanked 5-0 in a one-day series in India late last year.Bell said Pakistan -- unbeaten in Tests and one-day matches since losing to England in a spot-fixing marred tour in 2010 -- were playing good cricket of late.We watched quite a bit of Pakistan recently and they have been playing some really good cricket and so this is a massive challenge for us, something which we are all looking forward to, said Bell, a veteran of 69 Tests.Any time you play Pakistan we know that they have got world class players and they are really dangerous.