Paul Coughlin will join his Durham team-mates Mark Wood and Keaton Jennings in Ottis Gibson’s North squad for the first North-South Series in Dubai and Abu Dhabi next month.
Coughlin, a 24-year-old fast-bowling all-rounder who has been on England cricket’s Pace Programme this winter, replaces Northamptonshire’s Blackpool-born seamer Richard Gleeson, who has suffered a knee injury in his county’s pre-season preparations.
Paul Farbrace was also forced to make a change to his South squad last week, with Matt Coles withdrawing after suffering a toe injury on Kent’s pre-season trip to the West Indies, and replaced by the Middlesex and England Lions all-rounder Toby Roland-Jones.
The North and South squads will gather in Dubai in the week starting March 13, after the completion of England’s one-day series in the West Indies and the Lions’ one-day series in Sri Lanka.
Both teams play a warm-up game on Wednesday March 15 at the ICC Academy in Dubai.
The three-match series begins at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Friday March 17 at 10am local time (6am GMT), before a day-night match at the same venue two days later. The teams then move south to Abu Dhabi for the last game of the series at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium on Tuesday March 21.