Eight players are under consideration to be new members of the Worcestershire CCC Academy 2017-2018 intake.
Peter Clark, Callum Lea, Josh Dickenson, Alex Hinkley, Lewis Evans, Dan Holland, Henry Cullen and Aaron Tomson are all part of the short-list compiled by Worcestershire Academy coach Elliot Wilson.
Final selections will be made by the end of September with those chosen linking up with any members of the 2016-2017 Academy intake who are retained for a further 12 months.
The next Academy programme comes into effect from October 1 although in reality work gets underway in earnest from the beginning of November.
Four of those chosen in Clark, Hinkley, Holland and Evans were part of the Midlands squad chosen for the prestigious Bunburys Festival at Stowe School in July.
Hinkley and Clark’s performances in that tournament earned them selection for the ‘Best Of Bunburys’ tournament at the National Performance Centre, Loughborough earlier this week.
Wilson said: “We’ve short-listed eight players who are currently not on the Academy for consideration to come onto the Academy this year (2017-2018).
“As a group of coaches, and support staff, I will sit down with all of them individually, have discussions with those support staff, get their thoughts on those players and see where we get to.
“The selections for that (The Academy) are ongoing from now until the middle of September but I hope to have that done by the end of September so the lads know where they are heading into the winter.
“It is a nice group, guys who have performed well in our Academy-Age Group Programme, guys who have gone and represented the Midlands Under-15s and, in Callum Lea’s case someone who has performed outstandingly well in Under-17 county cricket.”
Lea, Dickenson, Holland and Tomson are all members of Malvern College and Hinkley is at Bromsgrove School.
Wilson said: “The relationship with Malvern College works really well for us and we work really hard with Bromsgrove School as well.
“There are a lot of guys at Bromsgrove School who this year will be in the programme just underneath the Academy, part of the Development Of Excellence programmes.”
Several of the candidates will be featuring in either or both of the forthcoming Academy matches at Dumbleton CC – against Warwickshire EPP on Sunday and then Oxfordshire EPP in a two-day match on Monday-Tuesday.
Wilson said: “We’ve got three days of cricket that the majority of these guys are going to feature in. Probably we know what we know about them already. Those games are part of their develoment and experience.”
TEAMS
v Warwickshire EPP (September 3)
Holland
Baker
Miszkowski
Evans
Clews
Cullen
Tomson
Dickenson
Tulacz
Marshall
Fallows
Akram
—–
v Oxfordshire EPP (September 4-5)
Holland
Caswell
Halion
Longworth
Bragg
Walker
Tomson
Abbas
Evitts
Sutton
Greening
Akram
Jordan
