"When you’ve been struggling for runs your mindset gets quite negative and you are worried about losing your place in the side," said England captain Andrew Strauss.
"When you are left out, you realise that life goes on and if you get another opportunity it’s a massive positive and something that you can’t really lose on. That as a mindset is a pretty good place to be.
"Ian’s done a lot of work. We sent him away and it was a pretty bitter pill to swallow. He’s done a lot of fitness work, scored a lot of runs for Warwickshire, he’s done everything we’ve asked of him and he’s had to dig pretty deep to do that. So I think he’s going to be a better batsman for that experience.
"A player of the calibre of Ian Bell coming in is very re-assuring. He’s a proven Test performer, he’s played in the Ashes before and he’s done that spell out of the side that a lot of us have been through.
"It’s not much fun when you are out of it but it makes you very, very hungry when you come back in."
"When Ian’s playing well he scores pretty quickly, just in a different style to KP I suppose," Strauss said.
"A lot has been talked about taking the game to the Aussies, and that’s important, but what is even more important is playing the situations well.
"Even in that Lord’s Test, there were times when bowlers bowled a number of maidens in a row and you’ve got to suck that up."
"He bowled two good spells, one in the middle, one in the nets, and he seemed to come through those okay," Strauss said.
"It’s always the case that you’ve got to see how he responds to bowling more than actually what happens when he’s bowling.
"He’s recovered pretty well from Lord’s, so we are still optimistic he’s going to be fine."
"It wasn’t ideal on Monday but we’ve played football for a long time and had no injuries so we just have to make sure we don’t hack each other too much," said Strauss, playing down the Bell incident.
"When the crowd get behind you, it’s a pretty motivating force and probably not much fun for the Aussies if they are getting sledged from the sidelines," said Strauss. "If we can use that to our advantage, that’s going to be great.
"Edgbaston is one of the grounds that is probably most atmospheric. Here and Headingley is where the guys like to voice their opinions. When we are playing well it’s a fantastic place to play."