Essex Eagles travel to Wales for the next NatWest T20 Blast contest when they meet Glamorgan on Sunday at The SWALEC in Cardiff.
The Eagles will be looking to avenge a defeat by the Welsh side just a week ago but they travel in confident mood having crushed Hampshire by 7 wickets on Friday night at The Cloudfm County Ground.
In what is becoming a tightly-contested South Group, success in the Principality will restore belief that the Eagles could yet make the knockout stages on the competition despite having lost four of the first five matches in the tournament before the win over Hampshire.
Last season, Essex Eagles again started poorly with four defeats from their opening five matches but a revival in form saw them reach the quarter-finals before they were eliminated by Nottinghamshire.
The Eagles have named the same 14-man squad that were on duty last Friday and that includes Tom Westley who was forced to miss the Hampshire match with a sickness bug. Westley was recently named by England for the third Test match against South Africa that starts at the Kia Oval next Thursday and, after Sunday, he is likely to be missing from the remainder of the Eagles group matches.
Chris Silverwood was delighted with the manner of Friday’s victory. “It was a must win game for us and we showed character and got ourselves back into the fight for a place in the top four,” said the Eagles Head Coach.
“We’ve got ourselves within striking distance and if we keep turning out performances like that, then we will be fine.
“Wheats (Adam Wheater) went in at the top of the order on Friday and did a great job, Dan Lawrence dropped to three but got runs and showed good intent and got on with the job for us. We said going into the match that we needed to win the first 10 overs and we did that to put ourselves in a great position. We also improved our run-rate which was good.
“I have to say that the bowlers did a wonderful job. We brought in Matt Dixon and he did very well whilst Paul Walter goes from strength-to-strength and Ravi (Bopara) bowled beautifully. Mohammad Amir is a world-class performer, there was some very canny bowling and Ryan (ten Doeschate) manoeuvred his attack very well.
“So all-round, it was a very good performance but there is still a long way to go. We obviously need to put a run of positive results together and see where that takes us.”
Essex Eagles squad to face Glamorgan:
Ryan ten Doeschate (27) Captain
James Foster (7) Wicket-Keeper
Mohammad Amir (5)
Ravi Bopara (25)
Varun Chopra (6)
Matt Dixon (30)
Simon Harmer (11)
Dan Lawrence (28)
Jamie Porter (44)
Callum Taylor (67)
Paul Walter (22)
Tom Westley (21)
Adam Wheater (31)
Ashar Zaidi (99)
