I will let the selection of Ryan Sidebottom ahead of Ajmal Shahzad slide, but only just. The need for a steady left-armer in the attack outweighs Shahzad's promise enough.

What can't slip under the radar, though, is the utterly backward move to return Ian Bell to the limited-overs fold.

Bell, who last played an ODI when Samit Patel was still considered lean and Owais Shah a viable number-three batsman, snipes in ahead of a) Ravi Bopara, b) Joe Denly, c) any decent batsman across the county board for that matter and there is simply no justifying his comeback. But I will try...

Could it be because the Bears veteran has been scoring runs in the Friends Provident t20 against - wait for it - Robin Peterson and Tim Groenewald? A quite likely scenario given Geoff Miller's account that, "Bell has performed well for Warwickshire this season in limited-overs cricket and worked hard to add a more positive, attacking approach to his game in the 50-over format."

However, tonking jaded South African sign-offs is entirely different to facing up to a string of Aussie pace aces smarting from World Twenty20 defeat and entirely intent on revenge.

Perhaps the brains trust are merely keen to keep Bell in and around their set-up going into the Ashes. Maybe he will, after all, carry the drinks throughout the NatWest taster and the Pakistan Twenty20s before the real deal hits Down Under. But then the same should have been done with Prior, or are England seriously considering taking Kieswetter to Australia as their first-choice 'keeper...?

Getting in a couple of good knocks against Ryan Harris and Doug Bollinger now couldn't hurt Bell's chances of impressing in Sydney and surrounds come November, but if wee Bello goes and fluffs this chance - which is an inevitability more than a probability - it'll be a tough battle to undo the mental demons.

You can bet your bottom Australian dollar Ricky Ponting's men will use this opportunity to get into the head of Bell. They've done it thrice before (think Ashes 2005, 2007, 2009; overall average 25.68) and they'll do it again. Negative press like this is hardly going to help the bloke, true, but there is no denying statistics. Cast your eye to his last ODI outing - a doomed series against India - and 84 dour runs across four innings reveals a similar, sorry tale. Bell's game was a mental wreck before the eventual chop put him out of his misery back then.

Now, he has snuck a reprieve by hook or by fluke, but the same question remains: where will he bat?

If anything is to blame for Bell's limited-overs downward spiral other than his own lack of ability, it's how he has been shuffled up, down and up the order. Once considered and opener and then a solid first-down before making up the numbers at four, five, six and - yes - even seven, the right-hander now finds himself at the mercy of the rest yet again.

Captain Andrew Strauss and Kieswetter will open, of that there is little doubt, while Kevin Pietersen has made the number three spot his own of late (yes, 20- and 50-over cricket is interchangeable). Paul Collingwood at four and Eoin Morgan at five leaves Bell - you guessed it - sulking at six again. That's if Luke Wright doesn't snipe in ahead of him, a very likely scenario if the innings needs a quick burst of boundaries.

Six seems a waste, really. In today's modern, dynamic game the man in before the traditional wicketkeeper-batsman berth and then the tail should, at least, be able to contribute with the ball or offer something of a swashbuckling approach. Bell possesses neither.

World Twenty20 and Ashes champions or not, England have done 'emselves a dirty here. Whereas the emergence of Kieswetter and Morgan shows that gone are the 'safety first' days of old, reverting to Bell affords the Aussies just the 'in' they need to hammer home their all-round authority.

What a Dimi Mascarenhas or Michael Lumb is to the limited-overs game, Bell is to the five-day game - a specialist - and England should have left it that way. You don't see Australia trying to squeeze David Warner into their Test XI...