Ian Bell: 'It's not good enough, there are no excuses'Mitchell Johnson delighted as Australia's plans come off

Ian Bell struggled to contain his frustration, and even anger, after being left high and dry on a glorious but inconsequential 72 by another dismal batting performance from his team-mates in the second Test here.

Mitchell Johnson did most of the damage in a spectacular afternoon burst of five for 16 in five overs, returning after a brief rest to end the courageous resistance of Monty Panesar and complete figures of seven for 40.

Bell agreed that England's specialist batsmen were equally culpable for gifting their wickets to other members of Australia's attack, while conceding that the middle and lower order have now reached crisis point against Johnson.

"The guys in that dressing room have played a lot of cricket and there's no excuses, it's just not good enough," said Bell, who rescued England from No5 to set up their three victories in the home Ashes series this year, but resisted the temptation to suggest that things may have been different if he had been granted his wish of a move up the order to replace Jonathan Trott.

"This morning was an exciting opportunity, one [wicket] down and it was all there to bat all day, and get back into this game. If you want to bat a day at a ground this is the place to do it. But what we've done in the last three innings isn't going to get us close."

Numerous pundits in the various commentary boxes, both Australian and English, questioned the heart of England's batting performance. "The only thing to fear is what's in your own mind," Geoffrey Boycott told Cricket Australia and Shane Warne said that Panesar was "showing some of the better players how you show some courage".

"When you're playing pace you have to have some serious courage, don't you?" Bell said. "You know you're going to get a few around your nose. We need to make sure that's the first thing, we're getting out there and we're going to battle hard." Had he been scared? "No, not at all. I can't speak for everyone, but no."

Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson each went for a golden duck, and Matt Prior also failed to score for the fifth time in nine Tests, leaving him with four runs from three innings in the series.

"At that pace when he's [Johnson] got it right and it's reversing it's tough work, certainly for the tail-enders," Bell said. "But the top six or seven have to score the runs."

Joe Root, who had been preferred to Bell at three, saw off Johnson's opening burst then swept the first ball he faced from Nathan Lyon to deep square-leg, and Kevin Pietersen flicked Peter Siddle to one of two midwickets who Johnson confirmed had been positioned specifically for the stroke.

"It was a plan, definitely," he said, revealing that Australia had seen Pietersen practising hitting the ball through his favourite midwicket region – where he was also caught in the first innings of the first Test in Brisbane – before play in the nets. "He's played that shot again. But on wickets like this it's probably not on.

"You know you've got to bowl straighter on these wickets, and we know that he doesn't like to be tied down. So we had the field set exactly how we wanted it and the plan came off."

Bell said: "As a batter you want to put a high price on your wicket, don't you?" "All great players have done that. I'd say Kev's a great player. We haven't played very well, there's no hiding or running away from that. We've got to improve fast in all areas, not just about facing Mitchell Johnson but in everything we're doing at the minute."

That Bell set England a second-innings target of "trying to show people we're going to show some fight" was arguably his most damning comment of all.