This winter, Josh Baker will be bidding to become the EIGHTH Worcestershire CCC player to compete in the ICC Under-19 World Cup in just 20 years.
The off-spinner is part of the Young Lions (Under-19s) squad selected for the November-December tour of Sri Lanka.
It is the Young Lions final series before the squad is selected for the World Cup, which is being staged in the West Indies in the New Year.
After his initial three months of first-team cricket for Worcestershire, Baker has trained with the Young Lions for the past month.
Now he will hope to follow in the footsteps of four current Worcestershire teammates plus Second Eleven Coach, Kadeer Ali, in experiencing an Under-19 World Cup.
Kadeer was part of the 2002 squad in New Zealand alongside Tim Bresnan, Sami Patel and Nick Compton.
Two years later wicket-keeper-batsman, Steve Davies, helped England to reach the semi-finals in Bangladesh.
He batted in the top four, scoring a half-century against Pakistan, with Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara, Luke Wright, James Hildreth, and Liam Plunkett also involved.
The UAE was the venue ten years later when Ed Barnard and Joe Clarke were part of the England side which again reached the last four.
Barnard batted in the top five, two places higher than Clarke, scored 93 against the UAE and returned 3-22 with the ball in the third-fourth place play-off win over Australia.
In 2018 young pace duo Adam Finch and Dillon Pennington were selected and often took the new ball in New Zealand.
In the Super League quarter-final defeat by Australia, Pennington had figures of 3-27, and Finch had England’s best figures of 2-36 against Bangladesh.
Jack Haynes then featured in 2020 in South Africa and, after missing part of the tournament through illness, returned to top score with 68 in the plate final win over Sri Lanka.
