My finger doesn't look too great
However, in his absence, very few of England's fringe batsmen made compelling cases for long-term selection.
Dawid Malan emerged with the most credit after a solid Ashes campaign, but Mark Stoneman and James Vince had middling returns - averaging 30.23 and 30.54 respectively - causing England's coach, Trevor Bayliss, to issue a "call-out to the guys in county cricket" to state their credentials.
And despite enduring a disrupted winter after breaking his finger while on Lions duty, Westley was back in action during Essex's curtain-raising contest against MCC in Barbados last month, where he top-scored with 62 in the second innings of his side's innings-and-34-run defeat.
"My finger doesn't look too great but it's not as bad as it looks," he told ESPNcricinfo. "It's still quite swollen but I should be fine for the start of the season."
