Anthony McGrath is urging his side to improve their overall game for tonight’s sell-out Vitality Blast match with Glamorgan at The Cloudfm County Ground starting at 7pm.
The Eagles lost by 39 runs to Surrey at the Kia Oval last night and Head Coach McGrath welcomes the instant chance to get back to winning ways.
“It’s good that we have an immediate opportunity to put the defeat to Surrey behind us but we’ll need to up our performance levels if we are going to get the result we want against Glamorgan,” he acknowledged.
“If we get the win, that will give us two wins from our four matches so far which would be acceptable at this stage before we have a bit of a break before the next tranche of matches.
“Surrey got away from us in the last 5 overs of their innings but up until that stage, we were pretty satisfied with the way things had gone. We felt that if we could keep them to around 200, we’d have a really good chance but then they added 72 runs including 52 off the last three. That was not acceptable, obviously it can happen in T20 but that was far too many and we need to look at that.
“I thought we batted well off the first 10 overs, we were around the asking rate but you need someone to have a sensational innings when you are chasing 223 to get you across the line but that didn’t happen and, as a result, we fell short.
“Chasing that score in T20 cricket is a big, big challenge and it means someone has to have a big day out but unfortunately, we didn’t have anyone to go on and play that big innings we needed.
“Varun (Chopra) and Adam (Wheater) have been sensational since they got together as an opening partnership and have laid the platform for us but we haven’t really been able to capitalise because the middle-order haven’t fired yet. At some point, they are going to have to stand up and be counted.
“We paid a heavy price for two dropped catches, one against Aaron Finch and the second off Ben Foakes and if you give two top players like them a second chance, they’ll come back to haunt you. Those misses cost us big time.”
Essex Eagles have named an unchanged 14-man squad for tonight’s match with the possibility that there could be a change or two from last night’s starting line-up.
Essex Eagles squad to face Glamorgan:
Ryan ten Doeschate (27) Captain
Adam Wheater (31) wicket-keeper
Ravi Bopara (25)
Varun Chopra (6)
Matt Coles (1)
Sam Cook (16)
Simon Harmer (11)
Dan Lawrence (28)
Jamie Porter (44)
Matt Quinn (94)
Neil Wagner (13)
Tom Westley (21)
Ashar Zaidi (99)
Adam Zampa (88)
