Wisden overview
As a Whangarei Boys' High School batsman with an inexhaustible appetite for runs, Matthew Bell was one of a group of skilled teenagers that came out of Northland in the mid-1990s. However, his teenage-prodigy progress stuttered when he moved into the Northern Districts senior side, and he later went to Wellington to broaden his cricket experience. After the tour of England in 1999, Bell changed his style from a dogged acquirer of runs to a freer strokeplayer. In this he was helped by Bruce Edgar, one of New Zealand's most astute opening batsmen of the previous generation. Edgar developed a more aggressive attitude in Bell, and this, coupled with a lower, rather cramped stance, turned Bell into a new batting model in the 21st century. He scored five centuries and captained Wellington to success in the Shell Trophy, forced his way by weight of runs back into the national side, set up a stable opening firm with Mark Richardson and hit his first Test century. But he struggled in Australia in 2001-02, and his prospects looked bleak when his replacement, Lou Vincent, hit a debut century at Perth. Don Cameron

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