England's Batting Puzzle: Gay, Cox and Lawrence

England's batting review from the Pakistan series comes down to three names — Emilio Gay, Jordan Cox and Dan Lawrence — and none of them has done quite enough to settle the argument either way.

The conditions did the trio no favours. Pockmarked pitches, awkward overheads and a Pakistan attack rarely able to sustain pressure made scoring easier without making judgement any clearer. Each batter has flashed without truly flourishing.

Lawrence sits ahead of the other two on paper, with three fifties in the series. But those runs came from the relative comfort of No 6, and he never turned one into something bigger — 65 is his highest. Gay looks the most fluent strokemaker of the three in full flow, and has shown he can scrap when the fluency deserts him, but he has not found that rhythm often enough. At Edgbaston he fell for 60 with a look that suggested he knew there was more in it. Cox, by most reckonings the soundest technician, steadied England's last run chase alongside Joe Root — an innings that showed the kind of temperament the selectors clearly value.

In isolation, each innings might have been enough to hold a place for another series. What changes the picture is Jacob Bethell, due back for the tour of South Africa in December, and almost certain to squeeze one of the three out of the side. England's growing willingness to shuffle batters around the order gives all three some cover, but that flexibility can only stretch so far.

If Bethell's return goes as expected, the identity of December's odd one out — Gay, Cox or Lawrence — may say as much about what England value in a batter as anything produced against Pakistan.