Kent Spitfires v Essex Eagles
Vitality Blast
The Spitfire Ground, Canterbury
Friday 27 May, 7pm start
Essex Eagles get the Vitality Blast campaign underway with a trip across the Thames to face rivals Kent Spitfires.
The Battle of the Bridge contest gets underway at 7pm with Simon Harmer eager to start off the competition with a victory.
The reigning champions will be looking to bounce back after suffering a comprehensive 8-wicket defeat to Somerset on Wednesday’s opening night of the competition. Jack Leaning impressed for the Spitfires hitting 72 off 43 balls however the Spitfires struggled to form any notable partnerships, and eventually succumbed to a brutal innings from Somerset’s Rilee Roussouw.
The Eagles welcome a new face to the squad with Daniel Sams arriving on Wednesday from his stint with the Mumbai Indians in the IPL.
Adam Rossington, Matt Critchley and youngster, Jamal Richards have also been named in the 13-man squad and are in contention to make their Eagles debuts.
Dan Lawrence misses out on the trip south due to a reoccurrence of a hamstring injury, which was sustained against Lancashire.
Aaron Beard picked up a foot injury during a T20 warm-up match earlier this week and is currently awaiting the results of a scan.
Youngster, Eshun Kalley is also set to receive scan results on a back injury, whilst Feroze Khushi is recovering from concussion. The batter is following the ‘return to play’ protocol and looking to make a return to cricket next week.
Squad:
Harmer’s View:
Simon Harmer is looking forward to taking over the Captain’s duties from Tom Westley and is confident of getting off to a good start.
“I don’t think we played bad cricket last year and of course, there were moments in games when we could have played better. We’ll be doing all we can to get off to a positive start with two tough away games to kick things off. We come off the back of a great four-day win over Lancashire which has been good for team morale and we will be carrying this momentum into Friday.
“The squad is in good shape and I’m excited to welcome some new faces to the Eagles. Dan Sams only arrived on Wednesday from his time in India and he’ll bring some extra firepower to the middle order. Matt Critchley has shown what he can do in T20 cricket from his time at Derbyshire Falcons, whilst Adam Rossington has the skills to get us off to a quick start at the top of the order in the powerplay overs.
“The group are all pumped for our opening night of the competition and I’m sure the Essex support will be out in force at Canterbury to support the guys.”
Opposition:
Kent Spitfires will make their second appearance at The Spitfire Ground in this year’s Vitality Blast and will be hoping their big names shine on Friday evening after a lacklustre performance first time out.
The 2020 Champions have South African all-rounder, George Linde in their ranks who joins the returning Qais Ahmad for this year’s competition.
Sam Billings captains the side again in 2022 and has been touring the globe playing T20 with Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash, England in the West Indies and most recently in the Indian Premier League playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Head to Head:
How to Watch:
There will be a Live Stream of the match available, courtesy of our hosts, Kent. You can watch this via the Essex Cricket Matchzone on essexcricket.org.uk, which also includes a live scorecard, statistics and key clips of the action.
Access via the Essex Cricket Matchzone is available here.
