chickenfeet

Re A-teams: unfortunately, England and Australia are the two countries that have taken this concept least seriously (though it's amusing that England A has resurfaced in the past two years, largely, it seems, because the countries the National Academy visited demanded that that was how their opponents should be styled). When England A, or the Academy, visit Australia, they're usually given state second elevens to play against. When A-teams come here, the counties rest half their sides. And if they get to play a combined eleven, it's made up of players from the counties who happen not to be playing that week. But your idea is a good one, and not unlike what happened in New Zealand in 2003-04, where they scheduled overlapping Test and A-team series so that fringe players could be swapped between the two.