County:- Essex
Championship:- Division 2
Nat League:- Division 1
Captain:- Big Ronnie Irani
Coach :- Graham Gooch
Overseas Players:- Danish Kaneria, Andre Adams
In:- Andre Adams, Grant Flower
Out:- Scott Brant(unattached), Zobi Sharif(unattached), Adrian McCoubrey (unattached), Aftab Habib (Leics)
Last Year Review: Essex endured a mixed bag of a season last year. At the start of the season, the expectation was for a quick promotion back to CC1, but a struggle to make much of an impact in the National League. Whilst the latter held fairly true, the former was sadly not the case.

The season started poorly, with the bowling in particular not firing on all cylinders. Several different bowling options were used to support Darren Gough and Graham Napier, including Scott Brant, Ryan ten Doeschate, Adrian McCoubrey and the injury-prone Ashley Cowan. The season began to turn around when Danish Kaneria became available after international duty. A recovery in the bowling happily coincided with a significant improvement in the batting, the highlight of which was a cracking performance against Leicestershire with a score of 708-9 including centuries by Will Jefferson and Alastair Cook, and a score of 212 off only 284 balls for James Foster. Unfortunately, the game petered out into a draw. Following a victory in the return fixture, and a 384 run win over Championship hopefuls, Hampshire - Essex started to crawl their way up the table. The loss of potential victories in rain hit matches against Championship whipping boys, Derbyshire and Durham counted against Essex in their push for promotion, however, it was looking possible for Essex to catch up with 3rd placed Hampshire.

However, the end of promotion ambitions came in a demoralising defeat against Glamorgan. Having scored 642 all out (centuries from Flower, Irani and Foster), Glamorgan were 286-7 until an inspiring Robert Croft and Matthew Maynard added 163, followed by another 138 runs between Croft and David Harrison. Harrison scoring a run-a-ball 88. Essex capitulated in the second innings - falling to 165 all out, before salvaging some pride taking 6 Glamorgan wickets before the runs were rattled off - Croft again coming to the rescue.

In the National League, early season struggles led to a push to preserve Division 1 status towards the end of a season, this status being preserved with a good victory against Glamorgan of all people! Essex scored 316 - 4 with Glamorgan falling to 153 all out. Irani scored 158 not out off 145 balls and Graham Napier scored 24 off 8 balls.

In the C&G, Essex progressed to the Quarter Finals with a crushing victory by a margin of 184 runs over Notts, with an opening stand of 248 between Jefferson and Flower before Napier ran through the Notts top order with a hat trick of Gallian, Hussey and Pietersen! In the quarters, however, Essex slid to defeat by 21 runs against Worcestershire.

This Year's Prospects: - This year, pretty much the same sort of season is expected, with hard hitting from Irani, Jefferson and Napier - coupled with one-day bowling specialists such as Gough and Napier - a decent performance in the one-day competitions is expected. The draw for the C&G looks tough, however, with Lancs as the first opponents.

Progression in the county championship looks unlikely, with the bowling line up looking a partnership breaking fast bowler short of taking 20 wickets. Much of the bowling will rely on Gough and Cowan remaining in one piece for the whole season, as well as Kaneria being available for the whole season.

However, it looks like other sides should struggle to bowl out Essex twice - with a line up of Jefferson, Cook, Flower, Flower, Irani, Foster, Middlebrook, Napier and Adams down to number 9 all having scored centuries; they are going to be a tough nut to crack.... And we all know how Warwickshire managed to win the CC1 last year, so who knows?

Player To Watch:- Will Jefferson