North-South qualification in the balance

North-South qualification in the balance Chris Liddle, Jordan Clark and Shiv Thakor are among a group of fresh faces on course for places in next year’s North-South Series with only one round of matches remaining in the qualifying phase of the Royal London One-Day Cup. The top four England-qualified players in the PCA’s MVP Rankings for the North and South Groups will again earn automatic invitations to the 2018 series, which will be watched closely by the England selectors as they continue their planning for the 2019 World Cup. As things stand, a couple of very familiar faces are at the top of the Rankings: Keaton Jennings, who captained the North in the first North-South Series earlier this year; and Alastair Cook in the South. Their availability for the 2018 Series may be affected by England’s Test schedule next spring, but that is unlikely to be the case for the majority of the players who currently occupy the qualifying positions – and for whom the North-South Series would be the perfect platform to press their 50-over claims. Sam Hain is second to Jennings in the North having replicated the form that made him the leading scorer in last year’s RLODC, even in a Warwickshire team who have struggled. That puts Hain on course for a second consecutive appearance in the North-South Series, having been frustrated by his inability to convert promising starts to more substantial contributions with scores of 33, 16 and 44 in the UAE. Third on the North list is Thakor, the former England Under-19 captain who joined Derbyshire from Leicestershire in 2015, and has contributed consistently with bat and ball for the Falcons in the RLODC this season, including a career-best 130 to lead a county-record run chase against Northants. Close behind him is Clark, the 26-year-old Cumbrian all-rounder who has made an impressive start to the season with Lancashire in both red and white-ball cricket, and took four for 34 as they beat North Group leaders Worcestershire last week. Clark has the chance to seal his North-South place in Lightning’s last game at Durham, helped by the fact that his nearest rivals from the North Group are Rikki Clarke and Ian Bell – whose Warwickshire team do not have a game in Tuesday’s last round of qualifying fixtures. Things are much tighter in the South Group. Hampshire captain James Vince is a close second in the rankings to Cook, having led the South to their 3-0 clean sweep of the inaugural series in the UAE. There’s then a 10-point gap to Daniel Bell-Drummond, the Kent Spitfires opener who was also a member of the South squad – and scored an unbeaten 92 in their 10-wicket rout of the North in Match One in Dubai. But he is dead level with Liddle, the 33-year-old left-arm seamer originally from Middlesbrough, who joined Gloucestershire from Sussex last season primarily as a white-ball specialist – and who claimed his second five-wicket haul in this year’s RLODC against his former county to ruin their return to Eastbourne on Sunday. And there are a couple more veterans breathing down his neck in Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens and Ravi Bopara of Essex, meaning there is all to play for in the last round of matches in the South Group on Wednesday – when their counties face each other at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence. To see the full MVP table click here.