THE major blow of losing star batsman Phil Jaques has been countered by the return to fitness of two key players for Worcestershire's Liverpool Victoria County Champion-ship division two clash with Leicestershire at Grace Road today (11am).

Jaques has flown back to Australia to join up with his international team-mates for a training camp until Septem-ber 2, but Graeme Hick and Kabir Ali have both passed fitness tests after injury lay-offs.

New Zealander Lou Vincent will once again deputise as the County's overseas player during Jaques' absence.

Hick, who signed a one-year extension to his County deal this week, has not featured in Steve Rhodes' side since splitting the webbing on his left hand while playing against Derbyshire at Chesterfield at the end of July.

Paceman Kabir, however, has been out for even longer as he struggled to recover from an intercostal muscle injury, which has ruled him out of the County's last four championship games.

Director of cricket Rhodes said: "Kabir and Graeme have both been passsed fit to play against Leicester.

"Obviously with the nature of Graeme's hand injury, we will have to look after him in the field a little bit, but he had a net session yesterday and came through that ok.

"It is a real big boost for us to be able to bring two such experienced players back into the squad.

"To be in a position where someone like Daryl Mitchell can come in and do as well as he did, but still miss out on the squad when more experienced players return says a lot for the quality of players we have at Worcestershire.

"It is unfortunate for Daryl to miss out, but that is all part of the learning curve when you are a youngster playing county cricket.

"Also, our Pro40 League win against Leicester was Phil Jaques' last game before heading off to an Australian training camp.

"However Lou, who has been training with us since Phil came back last time, will come back into the squad for today's game.

"He is a good player and is hungry to score lots of runs for the team."

Worcestershire (from): Ste-phen Moore, Lou Vincent, Vikram Solanki, Ben Smith, Graeme Hick, Steve Davies, Gareth Batty, Roger Sillence, Kabir Ali, Zaheer Khan, Matt Mason, Ray Price.