Matt Critchley and Toby Roland-Jones have been called into the England Lions squad for the three-match one-day series against West Indies A in Antigua next month, while Tom Barber and Liam Norwell have been added to the South squad for the North-South Series which follows in Barbados.
Critchley, a 21-year-old leg-spinning all-rounder from Derbyshire, has been enjoying his second successful ECB Overseas Placement in Sydney this winter, and fills the vacancy in the Lions one-day squad left by Liam Dawson’s withdrawal to play in the Pakistan Super League.
Roland-Jones, the Middlesex fast bowler who took 17 wickets in his first four Test appearances last summer only to be ruled out of the Ashes tour by a stress fracture in his lower back, is already in Jamaica with the Lions and currently playing in the first of their three four-day matches against West Indies A.
He will now stay on for the one-day series to replace his Middlesex team-mate Tom Helm, who suffered an injury to his right hamstring in the late stages of the ECB Pace Programme in South Africa this month – having recovered from the left hamstring problem which restricted him during the Lions’ training camp in Australia before Christmas, and ruled him out of the red-ball section of the West Indies tour.
Helm’s injury left the South needing two fast bowlers, following the earlier withdrawal from the Lions and North-South Series of George Garton with a minor side injury.
Barber, a 22-year-old left-armer who has only made two T20 appearances since joining Middlesex from Hampshire last season, has impressed on the Pace Programme all winter.
Norwell, who had an especially impressive season in the Specsavers County Championship for Gloucestershire in 2017 with 59 wickets at an average of 17.39, will become the county’s first representative in the North-South Series – meaning 14 of the 18 first-class counties will be represented in this year’s series.
The South won the inaugural series 3-0 in the UAE last March. This year all three matches will be played at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, as part of a spring festival of English cricket which also includes the MCC’s traditional four-day fixture against the county champions, Essex.