Joe Denly's obdurate innings provides England selectors with headache ahead of winter schedule

KISHAN VAGHELA AT THE OVAL: The England opener dug in for his final innings of the summer and was rewarded with a well-deserved, albeit slightly heartbreaking, 94 runs

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Stubborn. Compact. Obdurate. Whichever adjective you choose to employ, that fabled pride over your wicket, or thereby lack of over this series, has been clamoured for from all quarters.

And after a summer in which England have enjoyed a World Cup win and then suffered a drop off, in their final innings of the summer on a flat deck conducive for batting, that obdurate approach finally came to the fore.

The leader of that reserved, stern application? Joseph Liam Denly.

At times in this series when the World Cup winners have been unable to put away their ODI game and lock it away in the shed, Denly has impressed, even if he was arguably the culprit most guilty of a tentative approach whether defending or attacking, as evidenced by his push that was caught at slip in the first innings.

But on a glorious, sun-drenched surface, those pushes became full-throttle drives, and those nudges into the leg-side were worn on the body. Perhaps not in the areas that he would have hoped for, but being in the wars was the sort of description which had not applied to Denly's series.

Nor has it been truly applicable to his Test career, frankly. The 33-year-old has managed just 127 runs in the first innings of his eight-match long stint in the red-ball arena with England, which equates to an average of 15.88.

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Joe Denly was proactive against the spinners

Compare that to a second innings aggreggate of 330 runs in the second innings of matches, which includes four half-centuries, he risks receiving similar jibes to the one aimed in his direction by Steve Smith about making runs when the pressure is "off". But that would do a disservice to his gutsy performance.

The flowing drives weren't, and never are, too far behind, and were even extended upon as he strapped on his dancing shoes and took Nathan Lyon downtown for consecutive boundaries.

It may have fallen short of John Travolta's moves that Shane Warne was advocating for after the end of the day's play, but Denly owned this dance-floor, this patch, through compact rearguard action and controlled aggression against Lyon.

Joe Root and Rory Burns, the latter particularly having demonstrated those resolute characteristics in the series and with whom Denly shared the series' first 50-run stand between opening batsmen and the first for England since January in Barbados, were not quite so adept at nullifying the Australian off-spinner and nicked off before lunch.

But an average of 62.30 against spin in county cricket compared to 34.40 against pace highlights why Denly's opening role in the order poses yet another positional query for England and their batting lineup.

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The more potent question Denly's battling innings poses however is how he fits into England's winter plans. If at all. Root will undoubtedly be eager for a fresher, and put bluntly, younger partner for Burns in New Zealand and South Africa, yet his batting demeanour on day three of the Oval Test is exactly what England will require against Trent Boult and Kagiso Rabada, albeit on spicier wickets than the one on offer in south London.

Denly's fourth Test half-century may have just bought himself another year in Root's side, even if the consequence of that is to delay the search for Burns' partner.

Or provide the selectors with some breathing space in finding his long-term successor, depending on the degree of your cynical presumptions.

That 'half-glass empty' view of Denly's innings would also point out the close shaves in his innings, the straightforward chance that Marcus Harris shelled and left collateral damage in the form of split webbing on Friday evening, Tim Paine's continual failure to get to grips with the DRS system when Mitchell Marsh had the England opener trapped plumb in-front, and the Australian allrounder's difficulty in simply backtracking to take a catch at mid-off.

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The England opener made his fourth Test half-century

Yet, what Root struggled to bring about in the first innings, not just with regards to trigger movements and transmitting an aura of someone at ease with his technique, but also with taking advantage of the inadvertent lives the opposition, Denly exercised with the utmost authority.

With all the obscenities thrown around on and off the field, it was fitting, and more importantly pertinent in the larger context of a Test match, that a batsman whose modest celebration upon reaching his fifty and unflinching, gritty display took centre stage.

He may not be part of England's long-term future, but he presented himself as someone who can persevere further than 'doing a job' for the likely upcoming transitional period that the England Test side are likely to undergo once Trevor Bayliss' replacement is named.

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