Worcestershire fast bowler Pat Brown is set to make his first appearance of the season in the Second Eleven Championship match with Glamorgan at Newport next month.
Brown is making encouraging progress with his fitness after a back problem and is in line to play in the SEC fixture, which gets underway on May 9.
His last action was in January when playing two matches for Peshawar Zalmi in the Pakistan Super League.
Worcestershire Cricket Steering Group Chairman, Paul Pridgeon, said: “Pat Brown is not far off being fit to play.
“He had a slight problem with his back early season, which stopped him bowling for a while and getting the necessary workloads in to be fit to play in the first game of the season.
“He then developed a minor hamstring tweak, which was a result of the problem he had with his back which is now just about fixed.
“Pat will probably play in a second-team game at Glamorgan the week after next.
“He is bowling off full-run-ups at the moment, building his workloads up, and Alan Richardson (Bowling Coach) feels that if he plays in the game against Glamorgan, then he should be back to where we need him to be.”
Brown was the Worcestershire Rapids leading wicket-taking when winning the 2018 Vitality Blast and finishing runners-up 12 months later.