England Women's Academy Head Coach Lisa Keightley hopes to use the tour of Dubai to provide Paul Shaw with “an over-supply of players” for this summer’s Ashes series.
Shaw’s England women side face Australia in three Royal London one-day internationals, a Women's Kia Test and three NatWest T20 internationals this summer, but first the EWA travel to Dubai to face their Australian equivalent, the Commonwealth Bank Shooting Stars.
An experienced England squad contains nine players with full international experience, and Keightley is looking for them to take the opportunity to stake their claim to be involved when the first Ashes ODI takes place on July 21 at Taunton.
“Obviously the Ashes is coming up so we want to make sure we have an over-supply of players ready to play for the Ashes,” Keightley told ecb.co.uk .
“We also want to give members of the potential Ashes team, or team that have been to New Zealand, the opportunity to come out and really hit the season running and get that confidence up high with runs and wickets.
“We’ve got a great opportunity, we’ve got together for three days in our prep-camp before we go on tour, so it’s a great opportunity for time to plan how we’re going to approach it when we get out to Dubai.”
England-contracted wicketkeeper Tammy Beaumont is leading the side in the Middle East, with centrally-contracted quartet Georgia Elwiss, Natasha Farrant, Amy Jones and Natalie Sciver also involved.
And Keightley expects those players to take the opportunity to step up and show the way in the four one-day games, the first of which is tomorrow, and two T20 matches that comprise the tour.
She added: “We’d like to expose them a little bit more firstly as leaders in the group - stretch their leadership capabilities - and then also to give them more opportunity to work on their skills in an environment where it’s going to be competitive and have a slightly different twist and approach to it.
“For us it will be good competition, it will be hard fought, and I’m sure no team will take a backward step so it’s hopefully going to be very exciting and good cricket.”
Good luck to the @ECB_cricket Women's Academy heading off to Dubai today!! Go well girls, kick some butt!!
— Sarah Taylor (@Sarah_Taylor30) March 30, 2015