South Africa captain Graeme Smith will try out his back injury before the third test on Wednesday at Edgbaston, where he said his team will be looking to pressurise England after detecting vulnerabilities. 

Smith said he hurt his back in the match against Bangladesh A at the weekend. He did not take any part in practice on Monday and said he would not be batting on Tuesday either. If his condition does not improve adequately Jean-Paul Duminy will play.

“I have a bit of back problem that’s been niggling me since the Bangladesh game,” Smith told reporters. “I won’t bat today because I don’t want to do anything today that will affect tomorrow but I am taking treatment and it is improving. I will come early tomorrow and try it out. I like to think I will be fit enough to play”

Smith, meantime, said he was not surprised by England’s decision to omit Steve Harmison but admitted he was surprised by England’s indecision on selection for the last test when little-known seamer Darren Pattinson was given a debut.

That was followed by a ten-wicket win for South Africa and a public spat between captain Michael Vaughan and National Selector Geoff Miller. Smith’s team will target some of England’s out of form players.

England recalled batsman Paul Collingwood, who has not scored a test century in more than a year and who has not even made 100 first-class runs this season. Wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose and skipper Vaughan are also short of runs.

“As an opposition when you see the other team is under pressure it does benefit you,” Smith said. “We know that if we can play really good cricket for the first couple of days maybe we can open up some wounds and put certain players under a lot of pressure in this test match

“England are a competitive team and have bounced back many a time and have the players to do that so we have a respect for that and we know that we have to play well to make these things count for us.”

Teams:

England: Michael Vaughan (captain), Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Tim Ambrose, Ryan Sidebottom, James Anderson, Monty Panesar.

South Africa: (probable) Graeme Smith (captain), Neil McKenzie, Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, Ashwell Prince, AB de Villiers, Mark Boucher, Paul Harris, Morne Morkel, Andre Nel, Makhaya Ntini.