An 18-year-old hitting 91 runs and a left-arm quick on Ashes radar: England Lions scouting report

Having bowled Sri Lanka out for 139 on day one of the touring side’s warm-up game at Worcester, England Lions were all out for 324 at stumps on day two. Telegraph Sport was there to assess how the most prominent among the promising fared against a Test side.

Hamza Shaikh

The first player to make his first-class debut when representing England Lions celebrated his feat by scoring 91 off 204 balls. Only just turned 18, from Birmingham, Hamza Shaikh’s outstanding feature was his calm and patient defence while steering the Lions towards a first innings lead of 185 over the Sri Lankans in their sole warm-up game before the first Test against England starts on Wednesday at Old Trafford.

But Hamza can play strokes as well, which has attracted the attention of England’s senior management. Not out 21 overnight, Hamza batted through the morning to reach 54 before accelerating and playing two sumptuous strokes: the first was to deep midwicket for three, with a vertical bat, off a short-of-a-length ball, and the second an on-drive that could have been Joe Root on song. Such was Hamza’s balance that he followed the ball down the pitch.

All the while Hamza was keeping Prabath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka’s left-arm spinner, at bay. Taller and brisker than his eminent predecessor Rangana Herath, Jayasuriya targeted the batsman’s pads – and the Lions captain Lyndon James fell leg-before by playing round his front pad, but Hamza was having none of that, and either defended straight or clipped his singles.

An older batsman, sensing another piece of history as the first to score a century for the Lions on his first-class debut, would have accelerated as the second new ball approached. Hamza needed three runs an over to reach it but had only got so far as 91 when the second ball was taken, and he tried to work it to leg, and sent up a skyer off the leading edge which Kasun Rajitha accepted. Hamza was patted on the back by one or two of the tourists as he tore himself from the crease. He has to be content with the century he made for England Under-19s v Sri Lanka Under-19s at Cheltenham when he was captain.

Kasey Aldridge

Somerset’s 23-year-old allrounder partnered Shaikh in the seventh-wicket stand of 104 which gave the Lions a strong chance of defeating the tourists as long as the New Road pitch does not flatten out. During their conversations Shaikh seemed to agree to delegate the responsibility to Aldridge to go after Jayasuriya, who has the astonishing haul of 71 wickets from his 12 Tests, although 25 of them came in his two games against Ireland and one against Afghanistan.

Unfazed by reputations, Aldridge hit two sixes off Jayasuriya and went on to 78 off 96 balls. Both sixes went straight, the second of them just clearing a female spectator in the New Road stand, rebounding off a wall a couple of feet behind her and hitting her on the back of the head. She was able to walk to the St John’s ambulance station for treatment.

Hitting Sri Lanka’s seamers – and they have a solid seam attack to go with Jayasuriya – was more problematic when they took the second new ball and Aldridge ran out of partners, as the pitch was still doing a bit. But he shielded Josh Hull as much as possible and was dismissed, caught at long-on, only when having another go at Jayasuriya.

Aldridge has strong shoulders to call on when bowling pace and can bang life out of dull surfaces. He may come to represent England in one format or another as an all-rounder, given how his batting advances.

Josh Hull

Australia found an exceptionally tall left-arm swing bowler in Spencer Johnson from South Australia. England have found another in Josh Hull of Leicestershire. But whereas Johnson has reached the age of 28, and has played only five first-class games while raking it in on the T20 franchise circuit, and shows no sign of replacing Mitchell Starc in Australia’s Test attack, Hull shows up on England’s radar as a prospect for the next Ashes tour of Australia.

Hull does not turn 20 until next week but this Lions game is his ninth first-class match already: no sort of number at all by traditional standards, but these days a pace bowler of exceptional skill is nurtured and monitored before he breaks down with stress fractures.

Hull took three for 30, his best innings performance so far, when he swung the new ball on the opening morning of this game. His pace might be no more than early 80s mph at present but growth potential is there, to go with his swing from the high release-point. And his temperament is already proven, when he had to bowl the final over in the Metro one-day cup final last September and closed out Hampshire to win a rare trophy for Leicestershire.

Ollie Price

Growing in three formats simultaneously – and never mind the Hundred – is a challenge that cricketers of yore never had to face, but this 23 year-old Durham graduate has gone about it quietly and successfully. Having been a member of the Lions squad in India last winter, in the Ahmedabad camp, Price may have been a touch ambitious in the Lions’ first innings against Sri Lanka, and was caught off Jayasuriya, but he is putting together a strong portfolio as a top-order batsman – he was one of the leading Lions last winter – and part-time off-spinner.

Like other young Gloucestershire batsmen, Price has had to learn on the job for himself, as their overseas player Cameron Bancroft is not an established international. It might be too late for England, in any format, but his capacity to improve and his selection for this game – and his being captaincy material, and the sheer volume of England’s fixtures now – might win him a gig.