TRIALISTS Ryan Tongue and Alex Simpson are in the Worcestershire seconds side for the four-day friendly with Surrey at Kidderminster from tomorrow (10.30am).

Prolific batsman Tongue is the elder brother of County paceman Josh Tongue and plays for Barnards Green in the Birmingham League.

He scored successive centuries for the Malvern side against Bromsgrove, Himley and Leamington to top 1,000 runs for the season.

Paceman Simpson played for Durham at second XI level and represented Northumberland in the Minor Counties this season.

He has turned out for Worcestershire's academy, returning 2-35 against Staffordshire seconds and 3-84 and 1-20 against Northamptonshire.

Second XI coach Kevin Sharp said: “A lot of the academy lads are back at school and it is an opportunity to take a look at one or two people.”

They take on Surrey for the first time in several years to complete a trio of four-day fixtures after the Second XI Championship finished.

Sharp said: “Surrey got in touch towards the end of last season and asked if we would be interested in playing this fixture.

“It is always good to play some of your friendly matches against teams from the south. We tend to do a lot of that.

“The Second XI Championship finished for us in the first week of August and it still leaves a fair amount of time for the remainder of the season.

“We’ve performed better as a group in the Championship as opposed to the friendly games but it is swings and roundabouts.

“We’ve been playing some of our academy players who have been off school in this period and there have been glimpses of some real talent in there that we knew we’d got.

“Some of these lads are very young and they are just going to take a little time to bed in and gain the consistency we are looking for.

“They are all competitive games whether in the Championship or if classed as friendlies.

"Every game is important and you approach every one with the same mentality.”

Paceman and academy member Dillon Pennington returns after a shoulder injury.