FIVE Hampshire cricketers, including Basingstoke’s Chris Wood, have confirmed they will be travelling to India ahead of the new season.

Club captain Jimmy Adams as well as Liam Dawson, Hamza Riazuddin, Sean Terry and Wood will all travel to the Global Cricket School in Pune between February 8 and 14.

There, they will receive specialist training ahead of the 2013 season, which begins for Hampshire at home to Leicestershire on Wednesday 10 April.

Hampshire manager, Giles White said: “The Global Cricket School is a fantastic place for our players to improve their skills in hotter, dryer conditions than we have in England right now. We have a long track record of sending players over there to train in winter and they always come back saying fantastic things about it.”

“The players selected have chosen to go out there in order to improve specific skills and we fully expect them to come back better and sharper for the all-important lead-up to the County season.”

Before his trip to India, last week Wood had some pre-season training with Saints’ academy starlets.

Saints academy manager Jason Dodd welcomed Hampshire stars Adams, Michael Bates, Dawson, Wood and Riazuddin to the club’s training ground in Marchwood.

Hampshire manager Giles White explained the link-up and said: “We’ve known Jason for a number of years through his support of Hampshire and during last season he interviewed us as part of a coaching qualification that required a study of how things are done in another sport.

“In return he invited us to join in one of his training sessions so I arranged it at the end of last season.”

He added: “We try to do some team bonding sessions that take players out of their comfort zones and the lads have been keen to play football together since we stopped it as part of our pre-match routine for causing too many injuries.”

“It went very well and if Jason wants to bring his |players to one of our training sessions then he’s very welcome.”

Hampshire were without former Queen’s Park Rangers youth player James Vince, who was at the National Academy in Loughborough preparing to tour Australia with the England Lions.

However, Wood, who has played for Wessex League premier outfit Alton Town as a left winger, helped ensure Hampshire were competitive against Saints under-15s.

Hampshire captain Adams said: “I’d never been to Marchwood before, I was pleasantly surprised how welcoming Saints were and the facilities are fantastic. When the place is finished it will be awesome.

“Because of the frost we played on a 3G pitch doing skills and drills before an eight-a-side match against the U15s.

“Woody and Daws have played a bit before. Doddy and another coach provided us with a bit of class and helped make up the numbers.

“We lost on penalties and fortunately no-one was injured.”