Essex welcome back captain Ryan ten Doeschate for the match against Somerset in the Specsavers County Championship at The Cloudfm County Ground starting on Monday. The Netherlands all-rounder has missed the last two fixtures after suspension, with vice-Captain Tom Westley taking over the role.
Both matches ended in defeats; the first to Yorkshire in the Royal London One-Day Cup Quarter-final and then a heavy defeat to Nottinghamshire by 301 runs in the Specsavers County Championship.
Tom Westley offered no excuses for the defeat to Nottinghamshire and is looking for a response from the team.
“It’s not often that we get outplayed but we just have to hold our hands up and accept that over the four days, we were beaten by the better team,” he said.
“We just have to dust ourselves off and come back against Somerset and try to get back to our winning ways from last year.”
Essex have now completed half of the Specsavers County Championship fixtures having won three, lost two and drawn two, including a match against Yorkshire when not a single ball was bowled.
The County’s stand-in skipper offered his thoughts on the red-ball season so far that has left the county in fourth place of the eight Division One sides. “I think it’s been a mixed season, if I’m being honest,” he stated.
“We’ve done fantastically well to win three games but obviously we know that we are not playing as well as we did last year.
“But it’s a long season and there is a lot to play for. We do need our batters, myself included, to start scoring big runs and hopefully, that will start in the next game.
“Obviously we do have an issue with our batting at the moment but if you look at the personnel in the changing room, you probably wouldn’t want a better top six or seven in the country.
“We’ve been consistent for a number of years, it’s just that we’ve gone through a couple of months of not scoring runs. Hopefully, we can turn the corner in this next game.
“I must say that I think our bowlers have bowled fantastically well this year and hopefully as a batting unit, we can start to back them up.
“I do believe though that in this division, you are only a couple of wins away from being around the top and that is our mindset as a Club. It’s never taking a step-up backwards but always what do we need to do to move forwards again.”
Essex Squad to face Somerset;
Ryan ten Doeschate (27) Captain
Ravi Bopara (25)
Nick Browne (10)
Matt Coles (1)
Alastair Cook (26)
Sam Cook (16)
Simon Harmer (13)
Michael Pepper (19)
Jamie Porter (44)
Neil Wagner (13)
Tom Westley (21)
Adam Wheater (31) Wicket-Keeper
