Surrey sign Laurie Evans and Adam Finch on weeklong loans amid availability crisis

The county are without 14 players owing to a variety of reasons, including England duty, injury and coronavirus-related travel restrictions preventing Kolpak players from getting into the country

Surrey have signed Sussex batsman Laurie Evans and Worcestershire seamer Adam Finch on weeklong loan deals ahead of their Bob Willis Trophy match against Essex on Saturday.

The county are without 14 players owing to a variety of reasons, including England duty, injury and coronavirus-related travel restrictions preventing Kolpak players from getting into the country.

Both Evans, who began his professional career with Surrey, and Finch will be available for the game at Chelmsford, while Gus Atkinson has also been added to the matchday squad from the group that was beaten by Middlesex in the first round of fixtures.

Jordan Clark, who suffered a side strain in that match, misses out as a result.

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Surrey director of cricket Alec Stewart said: “We have four players in the England Test set up while Tom Curran and Jason Roy have been made unavailable for selection for Surrey after their ODI series and Reece Topley is recovering from his groin strain.

“With that and the fact Hashim Amla and Morne Morkel are still waiting on clearance to travel to the UK and six players, including Topley, are unfit to play, we have had to make use of the loan system to boost our depleted squad.

“Both Worcestershire and Sussex have been very accommodating in releasing Adam and Laurie for this round of games which gives them both a great opportunity to play first-class cricket.”

As well as Clark and Topley, Jade Dernbach, Nick Kimber and Connor McKerr are all missing with injury, while Rory Burns, Sam Curran, Ben Foakes and Ollie Pope are all in England’s bio-secure bubble for their ongoing Test series against Pakistan.

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