Worcestershire Academy coach Elliot Wilon is relishing the chance to work with three of the club's 2014-2015 academy intake during the 10 day trip to Chennai – and see how they react and adapt to a different enviroment.
Skipper Daryl Mitchell, Tom Fell, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Alexei Kervezee, Brett D'Oliveira and Shaaiq Choudhry plus Academy trio Nick Hammond, Josh Dell and Freddie Wynn are heading to India tomorrow to hone their batting skills against spin.
Worcestershire batting coach and second eleven coach Kevin Sharp and Wilson will accompany the players on a trip being funded by the Worcestershire Supporters' Association, the D'Oliveira Foundation and two individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
Wilson said: "I'm very looking forward to being able to spend 10 days with three of the Academy lads and really challenge them and push them.
"We get them for little windows at a time, on a regular basis, and it will be good to get them together for 10 days.
"It will be a challenging enviroment for them not just cricket-wise but climate-wise, culture-wise, society-wise.
"They will be out of their comfort zone and it will be interesting to see how they react out of their comfort zone.
"All three of them are really good cricketers and to spend 10 days rubbing shoulders with some of our professionals will be great for them."
Wilson added: "Freddie, Nick and Josh, they have showed promise and are exciting in all different ways.
"Nick has always looked particularly pleasing on the eye but has always found a way of scoring runs and a really tremedous character and worker.
"Freddie has kicked on and used the motivation of not being on the Academy last year when he probably had a fair argument to suggest he could have been on the Academy.
"He chose to react in a really positive way and is now one of our stand-out batters on the Academy and impressed Kevin during the early stages of the winter and obviously Kev is a reasonable judge of batters.
"Josh is a prodigiously talented young man who started his cricket up at Abberley Hall Prep School and is now down at Cheltenham College, unfortunate I think not to be selected to go with Ben Twohig on the England Under-17 trip to Abu Dhabi to play Pakistan.
"Fortunately for him, he gets the chance to go to India and work with the staff.
"They are all out and out batters. They are literally going to bat, bat and bat out there. It will be a great experience for them.
"The surfaces out there traditionally offer spin. I'm sure there will be a big focus on playing the spinners as you would do in that part of the world but also again batting against seamers when it is really flat and making the most of it when it is really flat.
"There will be a big focus on batting and honing their skills and exposing them to that different enviroment of prodigious turn. We will see hope they cope with it."
