After getting dropped from England's Test squad owing to his poor performance, England batsman Joe Denly shared that he went into "survival mode" after failing to score big.

Denly, who made his debut last year, had an average of 29.53 in 15 Tests and has failed to provide with a good start to the team as well. However, his highest score of 94 came against Australia in 2019.

Notably, he had scored just 18 and 29 in the opening Test against West Indies and he was replaced by the captain Joe Root after his return in the game for the second Test. He didn’t also feature in the ODI series against Ireland due to a back spasm in training.

"As I played more games and those big scores weren't coming, I may have gone into survival mode as opposed to expressing myself and playing the way I know I can," he told Evening Standard.

"Looking back I could have been a bit more free-flowing and taken it to the bowlers a bit more. I probably got caught up in batting time, not scoring runs, and that built up a bit too much pressure on myself. Before you know it, you're back in the shed," he further added.

Joe Denly recalled, "Absolutely gutted, disappointed," he said about being left out of the Test side. But it was a fair decision. I had opportunities to get big scores and looking back that's the most frustrating thing.”