Sunday, June 15th, 2014

Clarke To Make First Appearance Of Season For Seconds At Chester Road

Clarke To Make First Appearance Of Season For Seconds At Chester Road

England Under-19 wicket-keeper Joe Clarke will make his first appearance of the season for Worcestershire Seconds in tomorrow's Second Eleven Trophy clash with Glamorgan at Kidderminster (11am start).

Clarke, who has been completing his education at Llanfylin High School in Wales, is on a summer scholarship with Worcestershire before reverting to a full-time contract for the 2015 campaign.

The 18-year-old was part of the England Under-19 squad for the World Cup in Abu Dhabi during the winter and helped his country to finish in third spot after scoring 33 against New Zealand and 42 against India.

He has also been playing Minor Counties Cricket for Shropshire – he was recently named their Young Player Of The Year – and Birmingham League cricket with Oswestry this summer.

Clarke will also feature in the three-day Second Eleven Championship match with Glamorgan at the same venue which gets underway on Tuesday (11am start).

New Zealand batsman Colin Munro will play tomorrow at Chester Road after scoring a fine 56 in the Rapids NatWest T20 Blast win away to Derbyshire Falcons under floodlights on Friday.

Munro has been deprived of any warm-up matches with the Seconds during the past few weeks because of bad weather wiping out six successive days of cricket.

He said: "It is tough playing once a week so I've asked the club if I can play some Seconds cricket during the week.

"I'll play some white ball stuff for the Seconds against Glamorgan on Monday."

All-rounder Gareth Andrew will continue his comeback from a back problem by captaining the side in both matches.

Andrew played purely as a batsman in last weekend's home win over Durham in the Natwest T20 Blast.

Director of Cricket Steve Rhodes hopes Andrew will be fit to bowl by the time of the T20 Blast home clash with Nottinghamshire on June 27.

The 30-year-old picked up 20 wickets in the opening four LV = County Championship matches of the season.

Worcestershire Seconds: Oliver, Munro, Clarke, Andrew, D'Oliveira, Hepburn, Rhodes, Russell, Cessford, Whiles, Choudhry. 12th man: Harrison.