England won't add to squad

Warwickshire batsman Ian Bell is expected to be injury-victim Kevin Pietersen's replacement at his Edgbaston county headquarters while Steve Harmison and Monty Panesar will offer alternative bowling options.

"There are no injury problems as such, so we probably won't need to do that," national selector Geoff Miller said, of the possibility of naming further batsmen.

"We had question marks to cover in the last squad but I don't foresee needing to do that here. If we needed to draft someone in for any reason, we know who we would be looking at and have provision to do that at short notice."

Bell, 27, was axed during the winter tour to the Caribbean but has churned out the runs in Division One of the LV County Championship.

Disappointingly, having piled up 640 runs in seven matches, he failed twice in the draw with Hampshire this week.

England coach Andy Flower publicly acknowledged Bell as the man in waiting for batting berths in the Test team in the aftermath of the Lord's Test win, which put the hosts 1-0 up in the series.

Lord's man of the match Andrew Flintoff remains intent on getting through his final series in Test cricket, no matter what the consequences are, although he has experienced pain in his troublesome right knee since his Monday morning heroics.

He will be checked by the medical staff before the first net session in Birmingham next Tuesday.

Probable Test squad: AJ Strauss (captain), AN Cook, RS Bopara, IR Bell, PD Collingwood, MJ Prior (wkt), A Flintoff, SCJ Broad, GP Swann, JM Anderson, G Onions, SJ Harmison, MS Panesar.