West Indies A to tour England

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):West Indies A will tour England later this year following a pull-out from New Zealand, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced.

The ECB said Thursday the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) agreed to step in and fill the void after New Zealand Cricket requested that their side's tour of England be postponed.

Windies A will also participate in a triangular one-day series with India A and the England Lions, the country's A side, and will also replace New Zealand A as opposition for India A in two A-team Tests.

These four-day matches have been carded for June 10-13 at Grace Road, Leicester, and June 17-20 at Whitgift School in the tour which runs from June 2-9.

West Indies will open their tour with a three-day match against Glamorgan starting June 5, before facing India in the two four-day Tests.

They will play two warm-up matches against Ireland in Belfast, before meeting India and England A on June 28 and 29 at Northampton in the opening matches of the triangular tournament. The tournament final is scheduled for Old Trafford on July 8.

preparation

The England tour comes as part of a wider Windies A schedule being charted by the WICB. It will see a four-day match and two Twenty20 games in Grenada against the Zimbabwe senior side, who will be in the region as part of their preparation for the World Twenty20 Championship starting in April.

In May, the Windies travel to Bangladesh where they will contest a limited-overs tri-nation series with the host nation's A Team and South Africa A.

They will also play two four-day matches against Bangladesh A before embarking on the tour of England and Ireland.