EIGHT players are being considered for the Worcestershire academy 2017-2018 intake.

Peter Clark, Callum Lea, Josh Dickenson, Alex Hinkley, Lewis Evans, Dan Holland, Henry Cullen and Aaron Tomson are on the shortlist compiled by County academy coach Elliot Wilson.

Final selections will be made by the end of September with those chosen linking up with the 2016-2017 academy intake to be retained for 12 more months.

The next programme starts from October 1 although work gets under way in earnest from the beginning of November.

Clark, Hinkley, Holland and Evans were part of the Midlands squad chosen for the prestigious Bunburys Festival at Stowe School in July.

Hinkley and Clark’s performances at the competition earned them selection for the Best Of Bunburys tournament at the National Performance Centre, Loughborough.

Wilson said: “We’ve shortlisted eight players who are currently not on the academy for consideration to come onto it this year.

“As a group of coaches and support staff I will sit down with all of them individually, have discussions with the support staff, get their thoughts on those players and see where we get to.

“The selections for the academy are ongoing from now until the middle of September but I hope to have that done by the end of September so the lads know where they are heading into the winter.

“It is a nice group, guys who have performed well in our academy-age group programme, those who have gone and represented the Midlands under 15s and in Callum’s case someone who has performed outstandingly well in under 17s county cricket.”

Lea, Dickenson, Holland and Tomson are all studying at Malvern College while Hinkley is a pupil at Bromsgrove School.

Wilson added: “The relationship with Malvern works really well for us and we work really hard with Bromsgrove as well.

“There are a lot of guys at Bromsgrove who this year will be in the programme just underneath the academy, part of the development of excellence programmes.”