Fast-bowling trio Olly Stone, Saqib Mahmood and Craig Overton handed England central contracts

The ECB will control the workload of the three seamers and ensure they are given more personal coaching time during the summer and winter months

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England have awarded fast bowlers Olly Stone, Saqib Mahmood and Craig Overton with specialised central contracts.

The ECB will dictate the workloads of the trio and spend greater time nurturing them during the summer and winter months.

Players are also committed to being available for the Lions team, who are currently in Australia. Both Overton and Mahmood have been taken Down Under for the tour but Stone has been omitted as he continues to recover from the recurrence of a stress fracture in his lower back.

The deals, which run until September 30 2020, will see their county contracts part-financed by contributions from the ECB.

"Having a strong supply line of high-quality seam bowlers is an essential ingredient for sustained England ream success in both white-ball and red-ball cricket," said director of men's cricket Ashley Giles.

"We are very grateful to the first-class counties for agreeing to this, in particular, Lancashire, Somerset and Warwickshire. 

"We are committed to working very closely with them to best develop players for the long-term benefit of English cricket and to ensure they are at their very best to perform at optimum levels throughout the domestic campaign."

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Ten Test and 12 white-ball contracts were awarded by the ECB last September.

But this latest batch of deals is with a view of building a solid base of quick bowlers ahead of the Ashes in Australia in 2021-22.

Twenty-six-year-old Stone is included in the group despite his latest injury nightmare which saw him miss the back-end of Warwickshire's 2019 season.

He made his England Test debut against Ireland at Lord's last July having previously played four one-day internationals. Recognition by the ECB is the strongest indication yet that his rehabilitation is progressing positively.

Overton is included after last featuring for England during the drawn Ashes series, one of four Test outings for the Somerset seamer.

Left-out of the squad for the series in New Zealand, he was only enlisted as a late call-up for the South Africa Tests after an outbreak of illness in the camp but was never required.

Mahmood won places in the Test squads which took on New Zealand and South Africa but has not yet been called upon in the longest format, instead making three T20 outings against the Kiwis early in the winter.