LONDON, England (CMC):

England's netball selectors have retained mid-court player Karen Atkinson and defender Sonia Mkoloma as co-captains to face Jamaica in their three-Test home series later this month.

The series is expected to be fiercely contested and Mkoloma is thrilled to be leading the challenge with Atkinson.

"I'm really glad to have been selected as co-captain again this year with Karen," she said.

Mkoloma will feature in one of the key confrontations in the series, her battle with the 6-foot-5-inch Jamaican shooter Romelda Aiken.

Coming season

In the prestigious ANZ Pro Championship in Australia and New Zealand last year, Mkoloma played for Central Pulse and she has signed up for the Canterbury Tactix in the coming season.

The 20-year-old Aiken, MVP in the inaugural ANZ Championship, plays for the Queensland Firebirds.

The experienced Atkinson has 97 international caps and is poised to collect 100 in the series, which opens on Sunday February 22 at the O2 Arena in London.

The remaining games are set for the Sky Dome in Coventry on February 24 and the Trent FM Arena in Nottingham on February 26.

Jamaica and England have been very tightly matched rivals - behind the world's top two Australia and New Zealand - in recent decades.

At the last World Netball Championship in New Zealand in November 2007, Jamaica edged England 53-52 to capture the bronze medal, avenging a narrow loss for bronze to the English at the Commonwealth Games the previous year.

New world rankings

A new world rankings format has given England the World No.3 rating, displacing Jamaica and the Sunshine Girls are anxious to win the series and regain the No.3 position behind Australia and New Zealand.

Jamaica's squad for the series is a building unit and contains five members of Jamaica's Under-21 squad preparing for the World Youth Championships in the Cook Islands this summer - Aiken, Vanessa Walker, Christina Solmon, Malysha Kelly and Sateva Taylor.

ENGLAND SQUAD - Karen Atkinson, Sonia Mkoloma, Geva Mentor, Ama Agbeze, Sara Bayman, Jade Clarke, Tamsin Greenway, Louisa Brownfield, Rachel Dunn, Pamela Cookey, Eboni Beckford-Chambers, Joanne Harten.