England Lions will play Afghanistan in an historic first-class fixture next month as the culmination of their four-week training camp in the UAE.
It will be the first time an England team has faced the Afghans with a red ball, as the previous five meetings – three of them at senior international level – have all been in either 50-over or T20 cricket.
The game will start on 7 December and will be a four-day match at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
Before that, the Lions will play three 50-over matches against the UAE – who this week confirmed the appointment of former England batsman Owais Shah as their coach. They will all be played at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on 1, 3 and 5 December.
The 16-man Lions squad fly to the UAE next Wednesday after preparing this week at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and now the National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough. They will return on 12 December, and a squad will then be picked for a tour of Sri Lanka in February and March which will include two four-day matches and five one-day matches against Sri Lanka A – again, with details to be finalised shortly.
Andy Flower, the head coach of the Lions programme, said: “We have an excellent winter programme lined up for the Lions and these matches against the UAE and Afghanistan are a valuable addition to that.
“The development of the Associate Nations allows us to arrange competitive cricket against sub-continental style opposition which will be good preparation for our tour of Sri Lanka after Christmas, and hopefully these games against the Lions will also be helpful to the UAE and Afghanistan teams in their development.”
Shafiq Stanikzai, the chief executive of the Afghanistan Cricket Board, said: “We are always looking for chances to show we are getting ready to play Test cricket, and the chance to test ourselves against England Lions will be very good for our players. We have only been beaten once since we started playing four-day cricket a few years ago, but we expect this to be a big test.”
The Lions’ preparations at the Performance Centre in Loughborough this week have included sessions with the former England offspinner Graeme Swann, who worked with spinners Jack Leach and Ollie Rayner in addition to talking to the squad about the challenges of playing cricket on the sub-continent.
Former Derbyshire wicketkeeper and coach Karl Krikken has filled in for Bruce French, who is away with the senior team in India, and power-hitting specialist Julian Wood has been brought in to work with the squad for a second consecutive winter – and will also be travelling to Dubai, where the Lions programme will be based at the ICC Academy.
The Young Lions squad have also been training at the Performance Centre ahead of their three-week trip to Dubai in December, also based at the ICC Academy, in preparation for an England Under-19s tour of India in the New Year. Flower and a number of other ECB lead coaches will be staying on after the Lions tour to work with the Young Lions, as part of the International Pathway. Durham captain Paul Collingwood will also join Andy Hurry’s coaching staff in Dubai, and Sussex assistant coach Jon Lewis will be the fast bowling coach in India.
England Lions: Alsop (Hampshire), Bell-Drummond (Kent), Clarke (Worcestershire), S Curran (Surrey), T Curran (Surrey), Foakes (Surrey), Fuller (Middlesex), Gubbins (Middlesex), Jennings (Durham), Leach (Somerset), Livingstone (Lancashire), Meaker (Surrey), C Overton (Somerset), Rayner (Middlesex), Roland-Jones (Middlesex), Westley (Essex)
*Since the squad was selected in September, Jake Ball has been diverted to India with the senior England team, and Liam Dawson is playing in the Bangladesh Premier League.