Sam Hain will have a late fitness test on the hamstring injury that kept him out of last week’s weather affected draw against Somerset.
The 29-year-old – who’s scored 211 runs in four Vitality County Championship matches this season – has been sidelined for almost a month but hopes to return to face Division One’s bottom side Kent.
Spinner Jake Lintott comes into Warwickshire’s 15-player squad – with Chris Benjamin dropping out – for the first of two matches using the Kookaburra ball.
“We need to see where Sam is,” said First Team Coach Mark Robinson. “With a hamstring injury time is the healer as much as anything. We need to assess the risk, don’t want him coming back too soon, tweaking it again and missing the rest of the season.
“He’s been batting and hitting really well, but it’s the running that could cause an issue.
“In a lot of ways we’ve done well with the red ball. We had the better of the game against Somerset, a first innings lead, but the surface and the time lost due to rain didn’t allow us to push home the advantage and turn it into a possible win.
“There were positives from last week: Rushworth having an impact on bis return, a five-fer for Barney, Michael Rae was able to find something extra on a flat one, and Al Davies’ hundred which now makes him the division’s top scorer.
“And we’re working in an environment that has now produced two young men who’ve had their first England call-ups in Dan Mousley and Jacob Bethell.
Kent are bottom of Division One having lost their last five games, most recently an eight-wicket defeat at Worcestershire.
But Robinson knows they have the players to pose his side problems, as underlined by opener Tawanda Muyeye’s double century at New Road last week.
Robinson added: “They’ve had some difficulties with injuries, especially the bowlers and we know how much that hurts you.
“But like every team they have players who can dominate a game and Muyeye showed how destructive he can be with the bat last week.
“We’ll concentrate on what we can do and we have match winners throughout the side.
“Kent are a team that we beat twice last year so we’ll draw on that and hopefully with the weather set for four full days we’ll come out on top and start looking up the table.”
Squad
BarnardBethellBoothBriggsBurgessDaviesHainHannon-DalbyLintottMousleyRaeRhodesRushworthShaikhYates
How to follow
Members and supporters can follow the match live in our Match Centre at edgbaston.com, which will include a free-to-watch Live Stream and a live text commentary. You can also see a ball-by-ball feed and watch highlights of all the action. Supporters can get involved by sending their match-day comments and thoughts on Twitter via @WarwickshireCCC and we’ll publish the best ones on our live text commentary in the Match Centre. Supporters can also watch the Live Stream and get instant push notifications of all wickets, innings and match results via the Edgbaston app, which is free to download on iOS and Android. Match updates will also be available across the Club’s social media accounts, simply search for @WarwickshireCCC.
.png?clxf=t_general_medium)
