With the start of the County Championship season fast approaching, Seb Evans picks out six uncapped players that could help turn the team’s fortunes around.

Josh Bohannon

Lancashire’s top scorer in last year’s County Championship, Bohannon has made an impressive start to his first-class career. With 1,935 runs in his first 37 matches at an average just shy of 44, the right-handed batter could add solidity to England’s struggling batting line-up. Having gained experience with England Lions over the winter, Bohannon could well be the next cab off the rank if a middle-order spot is made vacant during the summer. Former England assistant coach Paul Farbrace has singled him out as a player of promise.

Liam Livingstone

Known more for his explosive ball striking in the shorter formats, Livingstone still boasts a respectable first-class average of 38.36 and has seven hundreds in first-class cricket. He’s shown that he has the temperament and swagger to impose himself on international cricket, scoring England’s fastest T20I hundred off 42 balls against Pakistan last summer, and while he is currently seen a a white-ball specialist, he could be an exciting addition to the Test side. Both Michael Vaughan and the late Shane Warne advocated for his inclusion last year.

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Joe Clarke

At 25, Nottinghamshire’s Joe Clarke already has 18 first class hundreds to his name, most of them scored before he’d turned 23. Having received his first England Lions call-up in 2015, Clarke seemed destined to play for the Test side from a young age, with many people comparing him to Joe Root based on stylistic and statistical similarities. But off-field issues have marred his career in recent years; in 2019 he was found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute by the ECB for his involvement in a WhatsApp group that came to light during the trial of his former teammate Alex Hepburn. He was reported as being one of England’s Covid reserves for the tour of the West Indies, indicating that he is in the hierarchy’s thoughts.

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Ben Brown

On the older end of the spectrum, Hampshire’s 33-year-old Ben Brown recently told Wisden that he continues to push for an England debut. While Brown may not be a long-term solution, he has spent 157 first-class matches honing his technique, amassing 22 hundreds, while averaging 40. He has said that age shouldn’t be a barrier to him being picked, and perhaps he’s right; England might do well to pick an experienced county veteran who knows his game inside out.

Matt Parkinson

Parkinson has been on several England tours without ever getting handed his debut. A leggie who gives it a real rip, the 25-year-old has a mightily impressive first class average of 23, and there were calls for him to play in the Caribbean to give England a point of difference on lifeless surfaces.

Brydon Carse

Durham quick Carse is currently on the road to recovery from a knee injury which ruled him out of the England Lions tour of Australia over the winter. However, his ability to generate genuine pace, a commodity England are always in search of, will increase his chances of a call-up in the near future, and his successful start to ODI cricket against Pakistan last summer, including a haul of 5-61 at Edgbaston, showed him to be capable of making the step up to international cricket.