England make Zak Crawley available for opening round of County Championship

Ollie Pope will also be permitted to play in Surrey's opening game of the new season against champions Warwickshire. But the availability of many of the players who toured West Indies is yet unknown

Zak Crawley is set to go straight into the Kent team for their LV=Insurance County Championship opener against Essex after being made available following England's Test series defeat in the West Indies.

The 24-year-old played the entire series, scoring a century in Antigua, in the 1-0 defeat.

Ollie Pope, part of the touring party but who didn't play a Test, is also free to play in Surrey's curtail-raiser against defending champions Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

But the availability of much of England's squad that toured the Caribbean will be confirmed in due course by the ECB.

April 7 sees the opening round of matches in Divisions One and Two of the Championship.

Durham's Mark Wood is out until May at the earliest after undergoing elbow surgery at the start of the week.

^{Pope didn't play in any of the three West Indies Tests (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)}

Of the other centrally-contracted England players, Surrey pair Rory Burns and Sam Curran are also expected to face Warwickshire.

Yorkshire, whose campaign doesn't start until April 14 against Gloucestershire at Bristol, are expected to have Dom Bess and Dawid Malan available for selection.

Jonny Bairstow is currently in the Indian Premier League with his new franchise Punjab Kings and is not expected to play red-ball cricket until the New Zealand Test series in June.

Sussex expect to have Ollie Robinson, unused in the West Indies due to a back problem that forced him to miss all three Tests, in the mix for their second game at Derbyshire.

But for the likes of Test captain Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Alex Lees, Dan Lawrence, Chris Woakes, Craig Overton, Ben Foakes, Matt Fisher, Jack Leach, Saqib Mahmood and Matt Parkinson, their immediate activities are less certain at this stage.

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