Hampshire captain James Vince is preparing for what may well be his last appearance before his Test debut.

Vince will lead Hampshire against Lancashire at Old Trafford tomorrow but the likelihood is he will be unavailable when Nottinghamshire visit the Ageas Bowl from May 22-25.

That is because he is expected to replace James Taylor at number five when England play their first Test of the summer against Sri Lanka at Lord’s on May 19.

Vince has already made his England debuts in the limited-overs formats and has done enough so far this season to show he is ready to make the step up to the Test team.

The 25 year-old has made 228 runs at 45.6 while captaining Hampshire to three draws in the Specsavers County Championship, including an impressive 119 against Yorkshire at Headingley, which helped his injury-decimated side recover from 128-5 and post 453-9 declared in reply to the county champions’ 593-9dec.

Sam Robson (73.6) and Ian Bell (82.33) are both averaging more this season but Vince is ideally suited to the vacancy at five and the two Tests against Sri Lanka are a perfect opportunity to blood him at the highest level.

He did not make England 17-man squad for the 2-1 Test series win in South Africa in December/January, when he was captaining the Lions to a 3-2 T20 series win against Pakistan A and a 3-2 50-over series defeat against the same opposition.

It is exactly a year since Vince’s anti-climactic full England debut, a rained-off ODI against Ireland in Dublin in which he did not bat.

But his man-of-the-series heroics in the 3-0 T20 win against Pakistan in Dubai in November showed he has the temperament to shine on the big stage.

And he will be very at home batting between two of his good pals from his England U19 days: Joe Root and Ben Stokes.

England's squad is expected to be revealed towards the end of next week.