The Ashes: Stuart Broad out? Mark Wood and Moeen Ali in? Who will England pick for first Australia Test at Edgbaston?

We don't need to spend time pondering England's top seven for the first Ashes Test. It is set in stone. Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes - dodgy knee and all - and Jonny Bairstow.

Jack Leach also looked a banker as the spinner - only to suffer a stress fracture of the lower back that has ruled him out of the series and led to Moeen Ali coming out of Test retirement.

England must now decide whether Moeen slots straight back into the XI at Edgbaston from Friday or if they field an all-seam frontline attack and ask Root to dish up some overs of spin.

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The pros for Moeen are that he has 195 Test wickets, bolsters the batting and Edgbaston is his home ground. The cons are that he has not played a red-ball game for two years, averages 64.65 against Australia with the ball and that in his last Test at Edgbaston, the Ashes opener in 2019, he recorded match figures of 3-172.

Still, having gone to the trouble of coaxing the off-spinning all-rounder out of retirement, it does seem likely that England play him.

That could leave all three seamers selected for last week's win over Ireland - Stuart Broad, Matthew Potts and debutant Josh Tongue - on the outside looking in at Edgbaston, even though two of them, in Broad and Tongue, picked up five-fors against the Irish at Lord's.

James Anderson (groin) and Ollie Robinson (ankle) are set to return after missing the Ireland Test as a precaution, while Mark Wood, England's quickest bowler, is also in the mix.

Anderson, Robinson and Wood is the way Baz and Ben could go, even though the "David Warner factor", as Sky Sports Cricket's Nasser Hussain put it, makes Broad the most tempting of picks.

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Broad dismissed Warner seven times during the 2019 series in England, during which the Australian averaged 9.50, while he has taken his rival's wicket 14 times in 26 Tests.

But after seeing England being made to graft for their victory over Ireland as the pitch got flatter, Hussain said Wood's speed could be crucial at Edgbaston.

If that's the way England do end up going, it is no slight on Broad, whose time in the series will come. It just highlights the strength in depth in the seam-bowling department.

Anderson, who is still going strong at the age of 40, is the team's leading Test wicket-taker of all time, while Robinson has bagged his 66 scalps to date at an average of 21.27.

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When Robinson left the field with a sore ankle a few weeks ago, during Sussex's County Championship match against Glamorgan, it was a worrying sight for all England fans with the 29-year-old the most likely of the seamers to play all five Ashes Tests.

Tall, metronomic, skilful and with the ability to bring both edges into play, Robinson is in the mould of Glenn McGrath, if that is not too bold a comparison. "He is a seriously talented bowler that needs to have a good Ashes if England are going to win it," Hussain said.

The final moment of the previous Ashes series saw Robinson bowled by Pat Cummins having backed away to leg. He backed away so far, in fact, that he was barely on the cut strip.

That wicket clinched a 146-run match win for Australia in Hobart and 4-0 series success over an utterly abject England.

There were few positives for the tourists to take away from the drubbing but Wood was one of them. Seventeen wickets in four Tests at an average of 26.64, dismissing Marnus Labuschagne three times in a row for scores of one, 28 and 29.

Wood said recently that playing in four of the five games in that Ashes series left him "knackered and wrecked" and that he would "definitely not" play in all five this year but England may want to unleash him in the opener, perhaps to rough up Labuschagne, a player who averages 57 in Tests.

If England have any concerns about a lack of cricket in Wood's legs - he has not bowled since mid-April - then Tongue could yet be their point-of-difference paceman.

The 25-year-old was just that on a largely benign Lord's surface against Ireland, claiming a five-for in the second innings as he showed his ability to touch 90mph while bowling either full or short.

Former England white-ball captain Eoin Morgan said of Tongue on Sky Sports: "He's a big, bustly guy that can get the ball to move, stick it under people's armpits, bowl to a short-ball plan and create opportunities when you need them.

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"As a captain, you need to have cards up your sleeve in order to play them at various stages of the game. He has a genuine chance of playing in the Ashes if the injuries come."

It may be that the hosts keep Tongue up their sleeve for later in the series, with Broad, Wood and Moeen vying for the final two spots at Edgbaston alongside Anderson, Robinson and - England will hope - a Stokes that is able to fully carry out his role as all-rounder.

England squad for first two Ashes Tests: Ben Stokes (captain), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.

Watch The Ashes live on Sky Sports Cricket from Friday. Build-up from Edgbaston starts at 9.30am ahead of the first ball at 11am.