England hope Gayle blows cold

The West Indies captain was irritated by comments from England counterpart Andrew Strauss criticising his delayed arrival in England until just two days before the opening Test because of Indian Premier League commitments.

But Strauss said: "He's always dangerous whether he's arrived two days earlier from the IPL or whether he's just got three hundreds in the last three Test matches. He always plays the same way, but hopefully he will be slightly distracted by it."

The criticism prompted Gayle to claim he "wouldn't be so sad" if Test cricket made way to Twenty20 cricket as the dominant force and asked Strauss to "stay out of [other] people's business", during an interview with the Guardian newspaper.

The angry response, which Gayle has since suggested was misinterpreted, could fuel his desire to deliver at the Riverside as the tourists attempt to bounce back from a desperate performance during their 10-wicket opening Test defeat at Lord's.

Gayle scored just 28 runs in his two innings in that match and England will hope he struggles just as much over the next five days as they attempt to deliver a stirring display in their final Test before facing Australia in Cardiff on July 8.

England are expected to name an unchanged line-up despite adding Ryan Sidebottom and Ian Bell to the squad from Lord's, which Strauss believes underlines the growing strength they have in their squad looking ahead to the Ashes.

"More than anything, having those two guys in the squad suddenly shows we have some decent depth in English cricket," he said.

"The fact those two haven't been in the starting line-up for the last week shows that we've got a decent group of 15 or 16 players to choose from, which I think going forward is very important.

"I'm confident we can repeat that level of performance from last week, but I'm not going to take anything for granted at this stage."