Lancashire’s Matt Parkinson hopes two Tests at Emirates Old Trafford will boost England goal

Leg-spinner Matt Parkinson hopes that England’s decisions to play two Tests against West Indies at Emirates Old Trafford may boost his chances of a first cap.

Parkinson, who made his first-class debut at Lancashire four years ago, is one of five frontline spinners included in England’s 30-man training camp for the series, which begins at The Ageas Bowl on July 8.

The 23-year-old will join the rest of the group at the bio-secure venue near Southampton on Tuesday, before the players contest a practice match from July 1-3 and the selectors confirm their squad.

England red-ball training group

Moeen Ali (Worcestershire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Jofra Archer (Sussex), Jonnny Bairstow (Yorkshire), Dom Bess (Somerset), James Bracey (Gloucestershire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Rory Burns (Surrey), Jos Buttler (Lancashire), Zak Crawley (Kent), Sam Curran (Surrey), Joe Denly (Kent), Ben Foakes (Surrey), Lewis Gregory (Somerset), Keaton Jennings (Lancashire), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Jack Leach (Somerset), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire), Craig Overton (Somerset), Jamie Overton (Somerset), Matt Parkinson (Lancashire), Ollie Pope (Surrey), Ollie Robinson (Sussex), Joe Root (Yorkshire), Dom Sibley (Warwickshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Olly Stone (Warwickshire), Amar Virdi (Surrey), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire), Mark Wood (Durham)

“It does spin at Emirates Old Trafford and it is the sort of pitch where they sometimes do play two spinners so that’s up to me,” he said.

“It’s up to me to perform well and stay in ‘The X-Factor’ judges houses and try to perform well in the nets and the inter-match to try to feature. Fingers crossed when they do cut some players it’s not me.”

The possibility of spending a significant stint away from home in order to participate in the series is likely to create unique challenges but Parkinson has a plan to combat that.

“I’m going to try to make it as homely as possible, take my coffee machine down with me, I’ve got a good number of books I’m going to read and I’m going to take my PlayStation down as well,” he said.

Parkinson made his international debuts in both limited-overs last winter, playing two Twenty20s against New Zealand before two one-day internationals against South Africa, but he initially struggled with the red ball.

A couple of underwhelming displays in warm-ups led to questions about his pace and how effective he would be at Test level, but he then returned figures of 4-68 in a practice match in Sri Lanka.

The tour was then aborted because of the coronavirus pandemic, and any initial disappointment at perhaps missing out on a maiden Test appearance quickly subsided because of the unfolding global events.

“When it first got cancelled, I was gutted. I thought I could potentially miss out on maybe playing or being close to playing,” he said.

“But as things have unfolded and got worse and worse, you start seeing it for what it is, which is a game.

“Three months ago, I was gutted because I didn’t do enough in New Zealand or South Africa with the red-ball to warrant selection and the warm-up games didn’t go as well as I would have wanted.

“To have ticked that sort of box in the lead-up to the Test match (in Sri Lanka) it was just nice to be in a bit more of a relaxed position, thinking ‘I’ve actually done OK here’.

“It’s one of those things, the more you play the more you get used to the level you’re playing at. There probably is a couple of work-ons that I need to do to be successful at that level.

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