GRAHAM STANDLEY'S season of surprises continued with his recall to the England squad for the British International Indoor Series in Ireland.

The Hampshire skip, who represented his country between 1983 and 1992, thought his England days were a distant memory until being named in the regional trial during November and then for last weekend's senior trial at Nottingham.

The Longmeadow bowler regarded his selection for the trials as "unexpected and a pleasant surprise" but yesterday he was digesting the best news of the lot - the fact that he has been chosen as a reserve for the BIIS matches in Belfast on March 14-16.

"I really didn't think I would get close to playing for England again, so to be picked for the trials came out of the blue. For the trials, I was quite relaxed because I thought I had nothing to lose and obviously that approach worked!

Standley, whose other surprise recently was to reveal that he is not playing outdoor bowls this year, will be in good company on the reserves' bench as one of the other three substitutes is his Hampshire colleague Peter Ward.

However, for Ward being a reserve represents a backward step as the Atherley man has played in the last two international series, the first of them being at Bournemouth in 1999 when he was called up from the reserves for the match against Scotland.

Ward played as a lead in all the matches last season at Prestwick in Scotland but admitted: "When I was chosen as a skip for the trial last weekend that was not a good sign.

"To me it said that the selectors already had people in mind for the lead positions and they were just fitting me in somewhere for the trial because although I skip for Hampshire, I would not be considered as an England skip.

"Naturally it is disappointing not to be in the starting line-up but it's still good to be in the squad and the selectors do use the reserves - as I myself found out at Bournemouth."

Fellow Hampshire players Mathew Marchant (Victory) and Kevin Cousins (East Dorset) were overlooked as was Kent's Martyn Sekjer who is currently working in Southampton and who may move to Hampshire permanently this year.

In an attempt to wrest the international title from Scotland, the selectors have named five news caps in Martin Pulling, Dion Auckland (both Grantham), Simon Skelton (Erewash, Nottingham), Mark McMahon (Denton Island, Sussex) and Clive Benham (Donyatt, Somerset) while recalling Steven Farish (Cumbria).