Yorkshire quartet named as Lions for Caribbean

Club captain Andrew Gale, all-rounder Adil Rashid, batsman Adam Lyth and batsman/wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow form part of a 17-man party that will tour the Caribbean from January 24 to March 28.

It represents another feather in the cap for Yorkshire's director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon and his coaching team, with Yorkshire having more squad representatives than any other county.

The Lions will take part in the West Indies Cricket Board's regional competition and play four-day first-class games against each of the other seven competing teams – Barbados, Combined Campuses and Colleges, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago and Windward Islands.

Gale, Lyth and Bairstow have been with the England Performance Programme (EPP) in Australia and all EPP players not included in the upcoming one-day series against Australia will travel with the Lions.

Rashid – not included in the EPP because Yorkshire felt it more beneficial he had a break – has been added to the Lions squad with Essex's Ravi Bopara and Glamorgan's James Harris.

England pace bowler Steven Finn will undertake the first half of the Lions' tour before being replaced by Warwickshire's Chris Woakes.

England national selector Geoff Miller said: "The tour of the West Indies gives those players who have been working hard throughout the first part of the winter an opportunity to test themselves in a competitive environment and to continue to put forward a case for inclusion in England squads over the summer.

"The England Performance Programme and England Lions tours are often crucial stages in a player's development and offer coaches and selectors an insight into whether players have the potential to develop into world-class cricketers and thrive on the international stage."

England Lions squad: James Hildreth (Somerset, captain), Jimmy Adams (Hampshire), Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire), Ravi Bopara (Essex), Danny Briggs (Hampshire), Maurice Chambers (Essex), Jade Dernbach (Surrey), Steven Finn (Middlesex - first half of tour only), Andrew Gale (Yorkshire), James Harris (Glamorgan), Craig Kieswetter (Somerset), Adam Lyth (Yorkshire), Liam Plunkett (Durham), Adil Rashid (Yorkshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), James Taylor (Leicestershire), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire - second half of tour only).