England Cricket / Editor / 22 December 2009 / 1

Retaining Makhaya Ntini makes South Africa weaker yet the home selectors are operating with one arm behind their back - and that makes England value to land an away win says Ralph Ellis

When you pick sports teams for any reason other than sport you've got problems. Ask Mark Hughes, who was encouraged by his owners to still fit Robinho into his side when the Brazilian had sprinted the grand total of 38 metres in the previous Premier League game.

So if you followed last week's tip to lay South Africa for the Test series, there's good news this morning. Friedel De Wet, the bowler whose blistering spell with the second new ball took England to the brink of defeat at Centurion, is likely to be left out when they name their line-up for Durban.

The 29-year-old paceman who came so close to a winning debut is the man expected to make way for the return of Dale Steyn. That's even though Makhaya Ntini took just two wickets in the first innings and made no impact in the second. The reason is that Ntini, now 32 and beginning to show the ravages of 100 Test matches, is still wanted in the Proteas team as a political symbol because of his colour.

The Daily Mail's Paul Newman - who correctly forecast England's line up for the opening game - reveals today that his sources say to drop Ntini, however poorly he played, would be "political suicide". It's not completely sporting suicide as well, of course, because Steyn's return will add extra pace to the home attack. But it will be greeted with joy in England's dressing room. Ntini needs another ten wickets to reach 400 in Test cricket and he doesn't look like getting them in this series.

After Graham Onions rescued them on the final day, Andrew Strauss' team are still expected to lose the series - the South Africans are [1.87] now. I'm being brave and laying it some more, having already laid at [1.75] last week. Just as they kicked off their Ashes campaign with a morale boosting battle to rescue a draw from a match that looked lost, so they can build on this start too. Avoiding defeat in the first of a four match series was always a key.

England, according to the leaks coming from the dressing room, are likely to pick a more attacking team for Durban on Boxing Day. The expectation is they will drop Ian Bell and give Luke Wright his chance to not only beef up the bowling but add some aggression to the lower order in the batting too.

In fact the batting - Bell's disappointing performances apart - has looked far more solid with Jonathan Trott growing in confidence. Picking Wright as an all-rounder - rather than going for an out and out bowler in Ryan Sidebottom or Liam Plunkett - looks a good compromise between the safety first policy which got the side off to the right start and the drive to be a bit more daring.

England's selection policy seems at last to be showing some logic. And at a ground where the conditions often favour swing bowling, Wright's likely inclusion makes the [4.6] for an England win a far more attractive proposition.
　
Five things you might not know about Friedel de Wet

1. Born in Durban in June 1980, he studied landscape gardening at the University of Technology in Pretoria, but left early when he was picked for the South African National Academy
2. More than three quarters of his first class wickets have come from catches, with only a handful of his victims (14 per cent) getting bowled
3. He quit professional cricket "for good" in 2004 after being released by the Titans because of a back injury - but got rediscovered when he started playing club cricket for fun
4. He played Lancashire League cricket for Chorley in 2008 after a move to Middlesex broke down through work permit problems. Lancashire also turned him down after trials with their second XI
5. He owns and helps run a garden nursery business in Rustenburg after going back to college to complete his gardening qualifications

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1. Tom | 22 December 2009

   Let Makhaya enjoy his retirement moments while giving way to the inform players.Lets forget about polotics now and focus on winning the test match.

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