England's decision to drop Ian Bell for the tour of South Africa which starts next month was met with a mixture of sadness and fury. Players who reach 100 tests have generally earned the right to depart on their own terms. Now Bell has joined the likes of Ian Healy and Shivnarine Chanderpaul in the small club of players who were dropped before they could get a chance to retire. Another member of the 100-and-out club, Kevin Pietersen, reacted angrily, describing the decision as "pathetic".story_article_left1"How can you have somebody who has played over 100 tests for England, with the biggest test series of the year coming up, and you drop him?" Pietersen said of his former teammate, with whom he also shares a management company. "It's absolutely ridiculous. You have to take him for his experience, you just have to take him."Team selection is a fine art rather than a science - even Alex Ferguson occasionally used to toss a coin if he was wavering. But for all the surprising timing of Bell's omission, it was also a decision with a great deal of logic.Simply put, Bell's lack of form over the long term has told. He has not scored a test century for 24 innings and averages just 29.5 since his sparkling Ashes summer of 2013. "Absolutely gutted," was Bell's verdict.Andrew Strauss, England's director of cricket, broke the news to Bell in person on Wednesday and the message from Bell was that he would fight to regain his place.story_article_right2"I certainly feel I could have contributed," Bell said, before revealing that he would use the opportunity to take a winter break with his family for the first time in 11 years.Bell has not retired and national selector James Whitaker was keen to stress that the door remained open for an international recall. But there is clearly a danger that Bell will be cast out permanently, which would bring down the curtain on England's third-highest test century maker of all time.Only Pietersen and Alastair Cook have scored more than Bell's 22 test hundreds."It was a very difficult decision, and not taken lightly," Whitaker said. "It's been fairly obvious over the last seven or eight months that he's struggled for form."..