NEWLY-CAPPED Lancashire batsman Karl Brown can play for England, according to his coach Ashley Giles.

Bolton-born Brown has enjoyed a memorable 2015 for the Red Rose across all forms, but most notably as an opener in the LV= County Championship.

The 27-year-old scored 766 runs from 12 matches with seven fifties and only the second four-day hundred of his career. He also scored three fifties on the way to helping Lancashire win their first NatWest T20 Blast title in August.

It was form that earned him a county cap at the club’s Player of the Year awards dinner on Saturday alongside ex-Zimbabwe Test bowler Kyle Jarvis, who took 62 wickets in four-day cricket.

Since scoring 888 Championship runs in 2011, the county’s Division One title-winning year, Brown has struggled to combine four-day and limited overs form.

But this year, he has shone against the new red ball, prompting ex-England limited overs coach Giles to tip him for higher honours.

And that means that two former England coaches have now talked up the ex-Atherton man’s international credentials because, prior to leaving Emirates Old Trafford in 2013, Peter Moores said Brown plays many shots of “international quality”.

“Browny, it’s a real step up this year and will be next,” said Giles, Lancashire’s cricket director and head coach.

“But watching Browny, he has the potential to play for England. I see a lot of players, and the way he strikes the ball across all three forms, he’s potentially a very, very good player. And a brilliant bloke.

“We’ve dome some work mentally and keeping his technical stuff quite simple. There’s stuff he does which is quite simple. It’s sticking to those.

“The thing with batters is finding a method that works quickly and running with it - and not for the hills when you’ve got a couple of low scores. That’s the biggest danger with young batters, that they change, tinker and swap.

“I said to him ‘there’s a spot, but it’s at the top of the order’. He actually said to me ‘I want to play, I don’t care where it is’. He now looks an opener.

“I think Browny’s also shown a lot more maturity this year. He’s come out of himself in team meetings, he’s a great lieutenant for Steven Croft. They get on well.

“There’s been a definite step change in going from averaging 25, something like that, to this year averaging nearly 50.”