England Cricket / Ralph Ellis / 15 December 2009 /

Playing attacking Test cricket is a bit like drinking and eating less at Christmas. Everybody agrees they should, and they even talk about how they plan to do it. But then nobody actually does. Ralph Ellis explains...

Even the great Australian teams of the last decade or more, the guys with the reputation of being aggressive and going for the jugular, never made risky declarations. They might have completed victories by slogging sixes or crowding fielders round the bat, but only once they had already taken charge of the game through sheer, relentless pressure built by negative bowling and solid batting.

So the news that England have chosen not to pick Luke Wright for the first Test against South Africa when it starts tomorrow morning is hardly a surprise. Given the choice of a gamble on a guy who had never been on a Test tour before, or safety first with the strongest possible batting line-up, there was only ever going to be one answer.

England's team to start at Centurion has leaked into this morning's papers and Wright, the all-rounder who was tipped to take over from Freddie Flintoff as the swashbuckling lower middle order man, is not in it. Instead, the cautious selectors will play Ian Bell at number six and gamble on just four bowlers. The only slight doubt is over the fitness of spinner Graeme Swann, with Kent's James Tredwell called up as a potential replacement.

There are those who will see it is an opportunity missed - including former captain Nasser Hussain who has accused Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower of ducking the chance to put pressure on the South Africans from day one. But in a four Test series you can't afford to lose the first one, and with fitness doubts around the bowling line-up that has clearly dominated the strategy.

Laying South Africa at [1.76] for the series remains a value bet - and all the more so if England can make the right start. That means standing up to their pace attack and giving Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen the platform to make big runs. Just as the great Aussies won games by applying pressure, so Flower and Strauss aim to make the same tactics work for them.

Bell is a man with plenty to prove and at number six will be in the position where his record is best - he's averaged 49 in Test cricket that far down the order and four of his eight centuries have come there too. Meanwhile Trott, who established his big match credentials at The Oval at the end of the Ashes, and has done it again in the One Day series on this tour, looks the ideal man to fill the problem position at number three.

I still can't make a case for backing England to actually win the first Test - not even at the healthy price of [4.6], because of the lack of penetration in the bowling line-up. But they are set up not to get beaten, so it's a question of either backing the draw at [2.58] or laying South Africa at [2.5].

It's not exciting - but then neither is giving up drinking and eating!

Five things you might not know about James Tredwell

1. Born in 1982 in Ashford, he played club cricket for Folkestone before joining Kent's youth development programme - then broke into England's Under 19 team

2. His 69 Championship wickets in the second division last season were only bettered by Danish Kaneria, and helped Kent win promotion. A left-handed bat, his highest score is 123 not out

3. He's nicknamed Pingu because his Kent team mates think he walks like the cartoon penguin

4. He got married in November to long time partner Beth, who is a nurse - then had to pack to go to South Africa as soon as they returned from honeymoon in Cyprus

5. England's 2005 Ashes winning wicket keeper and Kent team mate Geraint Jones is his brother-in-law. Jones is married to Beth's older sister

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