Andrew Strauss tells England they must play smart cricket as his side bid to stay top of the world rankings Taking 20 wickets a game is likely to be the team's biggest challenge over here. With pitches constructed of soils from Pakistan, patience and toil, with the odd flash of inspiration, are likely to be the best options on what are generally unyielding surfaces for bowlers. Tests tend to speed up in such conditions with games that look certain draws, after 3½ days, suddenly accelerating to unlikely results. "We've just got to play smart cricket out here," said Strauss. When the ball begins to do something you need to strike. There are times to hold your position and times to go for it and we need to make sure we raise our intensity when that moment comes. England usually prefer to give their most likely Test XI plenty of cricket before the series starts, but for this match they will have to do without Tim Bresnan from the bowling attack they fielded during the latter part of the summer. Bresnan recently had an operation on his right elbow to remove bone fragments from an injury sustained by diving in the field on England's recent one-day tour of India, and the joint is still swollen. That gives the deserving Steven Finn, England's best bowler on that one-day tour, an opportunity to lay down a marker for the opening Test against Pakistan which begins on Jan 17. "I think Steve has picked up a lot of confidence over the past six months," said Strauss. He'd been bowling well for Middlesex and then was able to cause problems for Indian batsmen in Indian conditions, which, as a fast bowler, gives you huge amounts of confidence. I think he's put on a yard of pace and is challenging those who were first choice at the end of the summer. Finn, along with James Anderson and Stuart Broad (Chris Tremlett will be hampered by conjunctivitis if he plays), could have their patience tested. Porterfield and Scotland's Kyle Coetzer are two of the more dour batsmen around and may take some shifting should they get set. The AA XI's bowling centres around Boyd Rankin and George Dockrell, respectively Ireland's tall paceman and their left-arm spinner. Rankin is involved with this winter's England Lions team which means he has been identified as a potential England bowler. But while that offers him an opportunity to impress those who really count (Strauss and coach Andy Flower) a more interesting sight might be Hamid Hassan, Afghanistan's opening bowler and someone whose game has evolved in conditions similar to those on offer here. If he and his two Afghanistan team-mates offer some unusual exotica, the whole tour seems more than a little odd. International cricket has been played in the Gulf before, but there is something artificial about the prospect of playing Pakistan amid such well-appointed facilities (three splendid grounds and acres of nets, indoors and out) rather than in Karachi and Lahore. When Strauss spoke of England conquering a new frontier on this trip he was right both literally and metaphorically. Not that all is milk and honey here with the cricket stadium and the ICC's global academy standing as lonely oases amid the unfinished developments of Dubai Sports City, where the myriad cranes have become as silent as the surrounding desert since recession hit two years ago. This will be like playing in a ghost town. Add to that the fact that the players will be using just two hotels for their entire visit and this really is an oddball tour, though one, you sense, that might well be settled by some equally unconventional cricket. England (probable): *AJ Strauss, AN Cook, IJL Trott, KP Pietersen, IR Bell, EJG Morgan, †MJ Prior (wk), SCJ Broad, GP Swann, JM Anderson, ST Finn. ICC Associate and Affiliate XI (probable): *W Porterfield, S Ali, K Coetzer, C Williams, P Stirling, M Nabi, †M Shahzad, G Dockrell, M Haq, B Rankin, H Hassan.