The avalanche of county runs from Rory Burns and a “touch of class” in Joe Denly’s DNA have led to the uncapped pair being named as top-order options for England’s Test tour to Sri Lanka, with Keaton Jennings also offered a lifeline for his international career.

Life after the retirement of a 12-year ever-present opener such as Alastair Cook was never going to be easy and in naming a 16-man party for the three-match November Test series Ed Smith, the national selector, has furnished Joe Root with a number of options, as well as retaining the experience of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad despite talk of rotation.

While Olly Stone, the uncapped Warwickshire fast bowler, gets a second call-up in a week after making the one-day squad, it is the inclusion of Burns, Denly and Jennings that catches the eye. Burns, who has passed 1,000 first-class runs for the fifth season running and led Surrey to the title this year, owes his call to that weight of runs.

Asked about the 28-year-old left-hander, Smith said: “Burns has impressed with his consistency. I don’t get hung up on the next Alastair Cook narrative. That’s not how you select. If he was right-handed and slogged sixes – and that was the best thing to do – we’d do that. There will be a new look at the top, inevitably, and one of the candidates is Burns.”

Denly, a right-hander who played nine ODIs for England as an opener in 2009, has been batting at No 3 for Kent this season. But Smith sees him as another option to open while the 32-year-old’s leg-spin has also matured. He is also the leading cricketer in the cross-format MVP rankings, with the national selector also making a note of his success in the pressured environments of franchise Twenty20.

“I played with Joe when he was a very young man,” said Smith. “You could see he was a fantastic natural athlete, a brilliant mover, talented batter, bowled leg-spin, everything came very easily to him. What’s happened to Joe is he’s evolved into this really calm, measured performer but that touch of class is still there. It’s in his DNA.

“I think with players who get opportunities late in their careers you just want to know that touch of class is there, and there definitely is with him. So that counts in his favour.”

If Denly is a late bloomer, then Jennings is an investment England are unready to give up just yet. The left-hander averaged 19.2 over six Tests this year but Smith pointed to 20 as the mean for openers during the English summer, prior to the Oval. There remains a belief that sunnier times lie ahead for a player who made a century on debut in India in 2016.

Smith, who included 20-year-old Ollie Pope as a middle-order reserve, accepted that a reluctance to blood two new openers was “in the mix” regarding the selection of Jennings, but added: “To me what I’m seeing is someone who has the temperament to handle how difficult Test cricket is. He’s batted as well as everyone else opening over the summer.

“He has a Test match hundred in Mumbai when the ball spun extravagantly. He can draw on that. He has come through a really tough summer and sometimes in international sport getting through something difficult can put you in good stead.”

For Anderson and Broad it was a case of the winter workload being manageable for the senior new-ball pairing but whether both make the starting XI remains to be seen. There has not been a Test draw on Sri Lanka’s turning pitches for four years, with three of every four wickets falling to spinners. England have three full-time options here, to go with Denly and Root’s part-time bowling, in Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid and Jack Leach.

It is a surprise there is no fourth spinner, given all three may well play, and instead England have opted to take a plethora of seaming options with Ben Stokes, Sam Curran and Chris Woakes the all-rounders, and Stone’s pace offering a significant point of difference.

Ashley Giles, the Warwickshire cricket director, has already warned against overburdening Stone and Smith said: “He has been troubled by injuries, there’s no secret there. We want to catch Olly when he’s at his best, when he’s in form, bowling fast, bowling accurately and with skill, but also to manage his workload so he doesn’t get injured.

“In Olly’s case he’s quick and he’s getting his wickets at 12 and his strike rate is 22. It’s a bonus the fact he’s got that pace. He’s not there just because he’s fast. He’s there because he’s doing a really good job and obviously it’s a great asset he has that extra pace as well.”

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Quick guide England Test squad for Sri Lanka series Show Hide Joe Root (Yorkshire) captain; Moeen Ali (Worcestershire); Jimmy Anderson (Lancashire); Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire, wkt); Rory Burns (Surrey); Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire); Jos Buttler (Lancashire); Sam Curran (Surrey); Joe Denly (Kent); Keaton Jennings (Lancashire); Jack Leach (Somerset); Ollie Pope (Surrey); Adil Rashid (Yorkshire); Ben Stokes (Durham); Olly Stone (Warwickshire); Chris Woakes (Warwickshire)

