Form is temporary...

So, here it is, the first cricket post on my blog.

Any Twitter followers of mine will have noticed that recently I tweeted regarding the press that England captain Alistair Cook was getting. I wrote that Cook was a class act and that, we as a nation, should be telling him how good he is (he is England's leading century maker of all time, after all), not shooting him down all the time. You don't score 25 hundreds and play in over 100 tests at the age of 29 if you're not a classy player.

After a well-publicised lean run, Cook scored 95 yesterday.

Then there is Ian Bell. There has long been a debate over Ian Bell's test credentials - he only scores easy runs, never scores 'tough' runs. People forget that he won the 2013 Ashes for England pretty much on his own last summer with three classy centuries. He was the only batter who stood up to be counted. But sadly there are many people with short memories, and this was long forgotten.

Today Bell - who when he is on top form, is the classiest stroke player in world cricket - stroked the most sublime 167 you could wish to see.

As they say, form is temporary, class - something both Bell and Cook have in abundance - is permanent.