Warwickshire: Injury-hit Bears sign Leicestershire fast bowler on four-week loan
- Published
Ben Mike has taken 25 wickets in six first-class matches for the Foxes
Injury-hit Warwickshire have signed Leicestershire all-rounder Ben Mike on loan for their next three County Championship matches.
The 20-year right-arm seam bowler has been brought in as cover following a string of injuries in the Bears' pace bowling department.
Liam Norwell, a winter signing from Gloucestershire, and Australian Ryan Sidebottom are out for the season.
Craig Miles and Oliver Hannon-Dalby are now both sidelined too.
And Henry Brookes is still out after missing last week's defeat by Surrey at The Oval.
The Bears are also without their two England fast bowlers, Olly Stone and Chris Woakes.
Stone is yet to appear this season following a back problem he suffered on tour with England in the winter, while Woakes is on World Cup duty and expected to be a regular throughout the Ashes series which follows.
Mike goes straight into the Bears squad for Sunday's fixture away to Kent at Canterbury, the third of five successive games on the road, which have already taken in Clifton Park, York and The Oval and is followed by trips to Southampton and Chelmsford.
"With mounting injury concerns to our seam bowling ranks, we're very grateful to Paul Nixon and Leicestershire for allowing Ben to join up with the squad at such short notice," said Warwickshire sport director Paul Farbrace.
"He's a good young prospect. Several members of our coaching team were impressed with what he showed against us in the away Championship game against Leicestershire last season.''
With Norwell having undergone an operation on a badly torn hamstring and Sidebottom out with a shoulder injury, the Bears last week signed Lancashire's Toby Lester on loan, who took four wickets on his debut against Surrey.
And, on Thursday, they signed up two more pacemen,, external James Wainman and Bailey Wightman.
Ex-Yorkshire left-arm seamer Wainman, 26, has been registered for the next month, with an option to extend the deal further, while the Bears have also given a short-term deal to Warwickshire-born Australian teenager Wightman, who played Minor Counties cricket last season for Cheshire.