EIGHTEEN Worcestershire players are among the 331 domestic cricketers available for selection in The Hundred men’s draft on Sunday.

They include Riki Wessels, Brett D’Oliveira, Ed Barnard, Ben Cox, Daryl Mitchell, Wayne Parnell, Dillon Pennington and Ross Whiteley who were all Rapids regulars in the Vitality Blast this summer.

Two more in Moeen Ali (£125,000) and Pat Brown (£60,000) have already been snapped up by Birmingham Phoenix for next summer’s tournament.

All of the other County players who have put their names forward have no reserve price.

Just four domestic players have a reserve price of £60,000, seven with £50,000 and eight with £40,000.

Worcestershire 2019 Blast overseas player Martin Guptill has a reserve price of £60,000.

Teams will select 12 players on Sunday with a maximum of three overseas picks who will join the already-announced England red-ball contracted players and local icons.

Other County players in the draft list are Jacques Banton, Josh Dell, Tom Fell, Adam Finch, Jack Haynes, Joe Leach, Alex Milton, Charlie Morris, Josh Tongue and Ollie Westbury.

Meanwhile, Worcestershire have taken on responsibility for development and overseeing the county women’s and girls’ age-group programme and senior side.

County CEO Matt Rawnsley, the head of player and coaches development Kevin Sharp and academy coach Elliot Wilson have formulated the scheme with the aim of increasing support for the scheme.

It started last month with Worcestershire replacing the Worcestershire Cricket Board at the helm although the latter organisation will still be responsible for club and schools' cricket.

County age-group squads have been selected from trial days and will start winter training from early in the new year.

Eight centres of excellence are being created across the country including one under the umbrella of Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire.

Wilson said: “The cricket board have got challenges of their own with a growing recreational game so we have taken the responsibility to deliver representative cricket and will give it an uplift and deliver it to the same successful standards as the boys' programme.

"We will engage part-time coaches to take responsibility for the day-to-day administration, communication, delivery and development of the women’s and girls’ programme.

“We are also currently putting together a group of players who would like to be involved in the T20 cricket for the senior side and we’ve got a winter programme for them on top of what we are doing with the age-group programme.

“The senior side will continue to exist over the next two years and then we will see what impact these centres of excellence have had and whether or not there is still a need for senior county cricket.”