Kent’s captain has been selected to face West Indies A for a series of England Lions tour matches in March 2018.

Sam Northeast, 28, will be involved in the three-match 50-over series in Antigua following the conclusion of Kent’s 2018 FGS Plant Tour on the same island. This also coincides with the Lions’ red-ball series in the Caribbean.

The three matches will be played at the Coolidge Cricket Ground, where Kent played four times on the 2017 FGS Plant Tour.

The right-hander has played for England Under-19s but this is his first selection for a Lions squad after scoring almost 6,000 runs across all formats in the past three seasons.

The squad will be made up of nine players who have been chosen for the whole tour, seven who will only take part in the red-ball matches, and six who have been selected for white-ball only.

Lions squad for whole tour: Keaton Jennings (Lancashire, capt), Joe Clarke (Worcestershire), Liam Livingstone (Lancashire), Sam Curran (Surrey), Jamie Porter (Essex), Paul Coughlin (Nottinghamshire), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire), Nick Gubbins (Middlesex), Alex Davies (Lancashire, wk).

Red-ball only: Haseeb Hameed (Lancashire), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Ben Foakes (Surrey, wk), Toby Roland-Jones (Middlesex), Jack Leach (Somerset), Mason Crane (Hampshire), Josh Tongue (Worcestershire).

White-ball only: Sam Northeast (Kent), Liam Dawson (Hampshire), Dom Bess (Somerset), Tom Helm (Middlesex), George Garton (Sussex), Matt Parkinson (Lancashire).

Itinerary:
February 5-7: Tour Match – Sabina Park, Jamaica
February 11-14 – v West Indies A – Trelawny Multiplex, Jamaica
February 18-21 – v West Indies A - Sabina Park, Jamaica
February 26 - March 1 – v West Indies A – Vivian Richards Cricket Ground, Antigua
March 4: Tour Match – Vivian Richards Cricket Ground, Antigua
March 6 – v West Indies A – Coolidge Cricket Ground, Antigua
March 9 - v West Indies A – Coolidge Cricket Ground, Antigua
March 11 - v West Indies A – Coolidge Cricket Ground, Antigua
(North-South Series follows in Barbados from March 18-23 – squads to be announced next month)