England to stand by Burns for Edgbaston

RORY BURNS will be granted a stay of execution at the top of England’s batting order for the first Ashes Test on Thursday despite his struggles against Ireland this week. The Surrey captain looked woefully out of sorts in falling for six in each innings at Lord’s, but there was a mood for consistency of selection when Ed Smith convened the 4pm meeting yesterday to pick the squad to gather in Birmingham and face Australia. Sources close to the England team suggested they were intent on giving the 28-year-old the opening two matches of the series to translate his strong domestic form — he has churned out another 603 County Championship runs this summer — into something more meaningful on the international stage. So far, the left-hander (right) has managed just two 50s in seven England appearances but the hierarchy are reluctant to make further switches at the top of the order a match after replacing Keaton Jennings with Burns’s former school-mate Jason Roy. Joe Denly’s place will also have come under scrutiny ahead of this morning’s announcement, but Test captain Joe Root — who ran out the Kent batsman at Lord’s — hinted at a need for context following the win over the Irish. ‘It’s always difficult when you’ve only got one Test going into a five-match series to make huge calls. It’ll be very calculated how we go about selecting the team and the squad,’ he said. World Cup heroes Ben Stokes and Joe Buttler will return to the middle order after being rested this week, while hopes are high that leading wicket-taker James Anderson, 37 on Tuesday, and the uncapped Jofra Archer will ensure England have a full bowling armoury at Edgbaston. POSSIBLE SQUAD: Burns, Roy, Denly, Root (capt), Stokes, Buttler, Bairstow (wkt), Ali, Woakes, Broad, Anderson, Archer.