Challengers Name Squad For Sussex T20

Sussex players past and present, Tom Hinley and Harrison Ward, have been included in the Challengers squad to face the county in a T20 match under the Hove floodlights on Wednesday (7pm).

Hinley made one County Championship appearance in 2021 during his time with Sussex and Ward, a fellow left-hander, is currently on a white ball-only contract with the south coast county.

Both play their National Counties cricket for Oxfordshire with Ward being a product of that county’s successful youth system and formal pathway programme with Sussex.

Hinley and Ward helped the Challengers beat a strong Leicestershire side by five wickets in a T20 match at Uppingham School three weeks ago in the side’s first match.

The Challengers have been created by the National Counties Cricket Association to showcase some of the outstanding talent in National Counties cricket, to strengthen links with the 18 first-class counties and to press claims for the representative side’s inclusion in one of the two domestic white ball competitions from 2025.

Sussex will use Wednesday’s match to prepare for their Vitality Blast campaign, which gets underway on Friday, and they are expected to put out their strongest-available side.

The Challengers have responded by naming a strong 13-man squad, nine of whom have been contracted to first-class counties.

Former Northamptonshire and Glamorgan batter James Kettleborough, who now captains Staffordshire, and Hertfordshire and former Essex seamer Jack Plom and Berkshire’s former Cornwall pace bowler Tommy Sturgess all come into the squad that was named for the three T20 matches against Leicestershire.

Berkshire captain Dan Lincoln, who has played white ball cricket for Middlesex and first-class cricket for Kent, will again captain the Challengers.

All but two of the Challengers squad – Plom and Dorset’s former Somerset batter Sam Young – were due to be involved in the rain-ruined National Counties T20 Finals Day at Chester Boughton Hall at the weekend.

Challengers squad: Dan Lincoln (Berkshire – captain), Harrison Ward (Oxfordshire), Johnny Connell (Berkshire), Sam Young (Dorset), James Kettleborough (Staffordshire), Tom Hinley (Oxfordshire), Nils Priestley (Staffordshire), Euan Woods (Berkshire), Toby Greatwood (Berkshire), Jack Plom (Hertfordshire), Rory Haydon (Staffordshire), Ed Moulton (Cumbria), Tommy Sturgess (Berkshire).