Rehan Ahmed, Jordan Cox and Sonny Baker have been named in an England Lions squad that will shadow the senior side on the tour of Australia.<\/p>\n
Leg-spinner Ahmed, 21, missed out on the main Ashes squad and instead joins a Lions group that will provide back-up and warm-up opposition for Ben Stokes’ Test side.<\/p>\n
England’s only warm-up match in Australia is against the Lions, a three-day match a week before the first Test in Perth.<\/p>\n
Ahmed is one of four players in the Lions squad that have won Test caps, alongside fellow spinner Tom Hartley and pace bowlers Matthew Fisher and Josh Hull.<\/p>\n
There is no place for Essex seamer Sam Cook, who made his Test debut against Zimbabwe in May.<\/p>\n
From the 18-man Lions squad, Ahmed, wicketkeeper-batter Cox and pace bowler Baker appear most likely to provide reinforcements to the Ashes squad if needed.<\/p>\n
Essex’s Cox, 24, would have made his Test debut in New Zealand last year had he not suffered a broken thumb, an injury that gave an opportunity to Jacob Bethell.<\/p>\n
Hampshire’s Baker, 22, was expensive on both his one-day international debut against South Africa and Twenty20 bow against Ireland, but is highly rated.<\/p>\n
He is set to be awarded a central contract for the upcoming year when England announce a new list of players in the coming days.<\/p>\n
Coached by England legend Andrew Flintoff, the Lions squad also includes promising batting brothers from Somerset, James and Thomas Rew.<\/p>\n
Joining Baker and Hull in a youthful pace-bowling attack are Hampshire’s Eddie Jack and Lancashire’s Mitchell Stanley.<\/p>\n
Glamorgan pair Ben Kellaway and Asa Tribe are rewarded for their fine form with first call-ups. Kellaway is an ambidextrous spinner, while batter Tribe has played international cricket for Jersey.<\/p>\n
Following the game against the England senior side, the Lions play a Cricket Australia XI, a Prime Minister’s XI and Australia A.<\/p>\n
Their tour ends on 8 December, the final day of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane.<\/p>\n
Separately, Rehan Ahmed’s younger brother Farhan has been named captain of an England Under-19s squad to tour the Caribbean in November.<\/p>\n
Flintoff’s son Rocky, 17, has not been considered for either the Lions or Under-19s because of an unspecified injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rehan Ahmed, Jordan Cox and Sonny Baker have been named in an England Lions squad that will shadow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-171194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}