England Test squad unchanged for West Indies tour as Joe Denly keeps place ahead of Jason Roy

England’s Test squad for their Caribbean jaunt after Christmas is unchanged following a successful tour of Sri Lanka, with only tweaks to the ODI group.

In the Test squad, Joe Denly survived the challenge of Jason Roy to retain his spot as spare batsman. As he was by the end of the Sri Lanka tour, Ollie Pope is not in the squad and is set to join the Lions in India next month.

David Willey returns in place of Sam Curran in the ODI squad, while Olly Stone misses out as Liam Plunkett is fully available again and Mark Wood is favoured in the pace department. Curran and Stone are both in the 16-man Test squad, though. Liam Dawson, who left Sri Lanka injured, is surplus to requirements.

The naming of the squad was delayed until after Ben Stokes’s hearing with the Cricket Discipline Commission, which concluded on Friday and ruled that he and Alex Hales – who is in the ODI squad – are available to tour with the bans served or suspended. A squad for the three-match T20 series in March will be named nearer the time. It is possible that by the time that is named Jofra Archer would have qualified for England.

Roy, 28, has played more than 100 internationals in the shorter forms of the game, scoring six ODI centuries and building a formidable opening partnership with Jonny Bairstow. He also has nine first-class centuries, the most recent of them batting No3 for Surrey in the final game of their title-winning season which, along with 59 for the Lions against Pakistan A in Abu Dhabi last month, meant he was a candidate for the Test squad. Ed Smith, who has been National Selector for nine months, has successfully brought Jos Buttler and Adil Rashid in from the ODI side.

Denly, a former team-mate of Smith’s at Kent, was pencilled in to bat in the top three in Sri Lanka but showed little form in the tour matches, making just 0 and 25 with Ben Foakes selected instead and Moeen Ali bumped up to No3. He did make his international return after eight years in the T20i team, picking four for 19 and the man of the match award.