I would be very surprised if Denly - whose name appears to have a slightly unusual spelling - was selected, he made an extremely shaky, lucky and generally uninspiring 25 in the first warm up and then failed here, dropped an absolute dolly of a catch in the first one, while his bowling has gone around the park and been treated with disdain in both.
He's apparently done just about everything in his power to make himself virtually unselectable. A bit of a red ball nightmare. His non spinning slower balls might be useful in the limited overs versions but here the batsmen just sit in and smash his rubbish, of which there seems to be plenty, away for fours and sixes. The cricinfo reporter (George Dobrell - not sure on spelling) thinks England may well be forced to play Ali at 3 despite an initial intention not to, a rethink might be needed.
Curran too was disturbingly expensive at times, according to the cricinfo report, and apparently looks absolutely innocuous once the initial 'help' from the new ball goes, he seems to need an immaculate line and length or he gets smashed too. He does offer far more with the bat than Broad though, although Broad offers far more control. With a third spinner now possibly almost certain, Woakes may appear as the compromise candidate instead of Curran or Broad with Bayliss very wary of too long a tail and crucial none of the seamers are hit out of the attack.
They may keep faith with Pope with Foakes as keeper and his replacement if not, its not a like for like and would seriously make the tail massive even if he isn't useless with the bat. I suspect they'll be forced to play Pope and Buttler.
My guess is Burns, Jennings, Ali, Root, Pope, Stokes, Buttler, Curran, Rashid, Leach, Anderson
If Denly did play he would bat at 3, with Ali possibly at 7 or 8 and Pope missing out. Foakes keeping and playing instead of either of those two is also possible especially with so much standing up for the three spinners. He's easily the best keeper and Bayliss is a big fan and may possibly bat at eight after Curran and before Rashid. It may however make the tail uncomfortably long which is something Bayliss has always guarded against in tests.
I think Broad will rotate with Anderson for the second and Woakes possibly replace Curran in a three man seam lineup in any of the tests.
What must be acknowledged is that England, after just three days of non-serious 14 a side knockabout red ball practice on batting wickets which are nothing like the raging turners they're likely to face, half of the bowling was seam too, are massively under prepared and facing a huge battle to even be competitive in the first test. This preparation means they're right up against it and is almost tantamount to asking for a hiding.
Who on earth came up with this nightmare scheduling? You can't prepare for any test series like this.
