Essex return to County Championship action tomorrow: Image courtesy of Essex Cricket

Essex now concentrate once again on the red ball game with back-to-back home matches in the Specsavers County Championship starting on Wednesday when they entertain Nottinghamshire at The Cloudfm County Ground.

In their last fixture in the competition, Essex beat Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford, a victory that saw the victors complete the “double” over the Red Rose County. The win saw the Champions register their third win in Championship cricket this year.

Head Coach Anthony McGrath is hoping that his charges can add to that success over the next two matches. “After these two games there is quite a gap before we play four-day cricket again because the T20 season starts” he said.

“Therefore, it’s important that we get as many points as we can from these next two games. We are targeting at least one win from these two games and from where we are in the table right now, it would set us up nicely when we return to Championship cricket later in the season.

“I was delighted with the win against Lancashire, they are a good side and if you look at their side on paper, you would say that perhaps they are under-achieving a little bit. It was a really, really important win for us and to get two wins against them this season has been very satisfying. We’ve got them out of the way now and I’m sure they will pick up plenty of points this season.”

Essex will be without captain Ryan ten Doeschate for the match with Nottinghamshire as he completes a two-match ban and the side will be led in his absence by Tom Westley.

“It’s unfortunate that Ryan will be missing but we just have to get on with it” McGrath stated. “Any absence for whatever reason allows someone else to come in and grab their opportunity.

Essex have managed just 6 batting bonus points this summer and that is an area McGrath is anxious to improve quickly.

“I still feel that there is a lot more to come from our side, particularly in the batting where I am looking for us to step-up,” he said.

“The mitigating circumstances would be that the games have been fairly low-scoring affairs in our Championship matches this season. It’s not been easy but we have been below-par with the bat. Having said that, we’ve still managed to pick up three wins.

“Hopefully we can start to get some serious runs on the board from now on and give our bowlers some runs to really play with. We do need to start getting more batting bonus points because they can really make a difference by the end of the season.

“If you look at the table now, I know the first game was washed out but if you add in a few more batting points to the table, we’d be top and that shows just how important bonus points are. We have to start getting some serious batting points on the board and hopefully that can start against Nottinghamshire.”

The visitors, who were promoted from Division Two at the end of last season, start the match one place and 6 points adrift of third-placed Essex who, in turn are 7 points behind leaders Somerset. The West Country side though have only played 5 matches, one fewer than Essex and Nottinghamshire.

Essex Squad to face Nottinghamshire:

21 Tom Westley (C)
31 Adam Wheater (WK)
25 Ravi Bopara
6 Varun Chopra
1 Matt Coles
26 Alastair Cook
11 Simon Harmer
28 Dan Lawrence
19 Michael Pepper
44 Jamie Porter
94 Matt Quinn
13 Neil Wagner

Report provided by Essex CCC