The Professor wrote:I praised the England Lions yesterday but are we somewhat missing the purpose of an A team.
If we look at the South Africa A team, they have a lot of burgeoning talent. Temba Bavuma is the only big name in there and that's because he is kicking his heels due to not being included in South Africa's ODI squad.
In contrast there are players with huge amounts of international experience doing the rounds in the England Lions squad. I know that Finn has now been called up but should he have even been in the squad? Surely we know what he's capable of. The same can be said of Dawson.
Liam Dawson has played a grand total of 1 Test, 1 ODI and 2 T20s.
Finn they are trying to encourage and keep involved in the system. They still see him as next in line (hence getting the call-up when Woakes got injured) and don't want to give him the impression that others are leap-frogging him.
Duckett has only played for England in the past year, Vince the same (ignoring a washed out ODI vs Ireland in 2015).
The rest are yet to represent England in any format. So Finn aside, it's a very small amount of international experience. It's a squad of burgeoning talent as well.