Essex Eagles entertain Middlesex at The Cloudfm County Ground on Friday in the Royal London One-Day Cup, having made a blistering start to the competition by thrashing Glamorgan by 180 runs in Cardiff on Wednesday.
Varun Chopra paved the way for victory with 111, adding to his 124 and 98 not out on the two previous occasions he has faced the Welsh side in the 50-over competition.
The opener claimed that Wednesday’s victory was the ideal start to the Eagles white-ball campaign this year, and said: “In this format, it’s a confidence thing and you do need to get a win early and take confidence from that which we’ve done.
“We had control from ball one, and overall it was a good team performance. It was a little tricky at the start, but once we had three good partnerships up front, it gave licence for Dan Lawrence to show his talent.
“Our bowlers then gave us a great start, and once a side loses three wickets in the power play, it gets more difficult from then on.
“We are really pleased with how things went. It could not have gone better and so we’ll be nice and confident going into the Middlesex game and hopefully, we can back it up with another strong performance.
Reflecting on his own pivotal innings, Chopra stated: “There hasn’t been too much cricket for me this year up to now and so that was important for me to get a good score and start to feel confident about my own game.
“I want to kick on from here and have a good tournament.”
The Eagles have named a 15-man squad for the match with Middlesex with batsman Rishi Patel added to the party named for the Glamorgan match.
Essex Eagles squad to face Middlesex:
Ryan ten Doeschate (27), (captain)
Ravi Bopara (25)
Varun Chopra (6)
Alastair Cook (26)
Sam Cook (16)
Simon Harmer (11)
Dan Lawrence (28)
Aron Nijjar (24)
Rishi Patel (12)
Jamie Porter (44)
Matt Quinn (94)
Peter Siddle (64)
Paul Walter (22)
Tom Westley (21)
Robbie White (4), (wicket-keeper)
