JAMIE Porter has made his second trip of the winter to the Desert Springs Resort - keen to make up for lost time with the Lions.

The Essex seamer, who was the leading wicket-taker in the Specsavers County Championship last season with his 75 playing a key role in taking the title to Chelmsford, had been due to travel to Australia with the Lions before Christmas.

However, the surprise discovery of a hot spot in his lower back, later confirmed as a stress fracture, denied him a close-up view of the Ashes – with the decision taken for Porter to withdraw from the Lions programme for the first half of the winter and to link up instead with his Essex team-mate Paul Walter on the Pace Programme.

That has meant spending three days a week either side of Christmas at the Performance Centre in Loughborough, but also a first trip to Desert Springs when the Pace Programme headed for Spain in December.

Now Porter is back there with the Lions, for a four-day warm-weather training camp to conclude their preparations for a six-week trip to the West Indies.

“I had my final scan results back and it’s all clear,” said the 24-year-old.

“So I’m back bowling at full whack and I feel good – and I do want to hit the ground running.

“It’s been hard work on the Pace Programme but it’s been good and going out to Desert Springs before Christmas was just at the right time for me.

"It got me outside bowling on decent wickets, getting off a full run-up.

"I did a bit of fielding outdoors as well and a bit of batting on wickets, so it was exactly what I needed at the time.

"I’m looking forward to getting out there and bowling at batters outdoors - that will be the perfect place to get ready for the West Indies.”

Porter admits that the events of the autumn were “tough to swallow".

"I got told I had the hot spot and then had a CT scan, so there was a three-day period where we were scratching our heads wondering if I could get through Australia with it," he said.

"But when the scan results came back and I saw the stress fracture that was definitely the final blow.

“You look at what followed in the week or so after that, with people in the Ashes squad going down injured, and you just never know.

"Hopefully I will get the opportunity with the Lions in the West Indies to put things right and put my name in the hat again.”

The Lions have also confirmed that Porter’s Essex team-mate Dan Lawrence will now stay with the squad for the three-match one-day series against West Indies A in Antigua which follows the three four-day matches between the teams.

Lawrence, who had initially been selected for only the red-ball section of the tour, will replace Lancashire’s Liam Livingstone following his inclusion in the England squad for the Test tour of New Zealand – where he will be joined by two other members of the Lions squad, former Frinton and Essex man Ben Foakes and Mason Crane.

At the end of the one-day series against West Indies A, Porter and Lawrence will head for Barbados and link up again with Walter as the three Essex players who have been included in the South squad for their defence of the North-South Series.

The Lions flew to Desert Springs on Saturday morning and return on Thursday, ahead of their departure for Jamaica on January 31.