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11th May 2013
Posted by Danny Lawrence
Essex have named a 13-man squad for the trip to Edinburgh on Sunday where they face Scotland in the Yorkshire Bank 40 competition.
Ben Foakes, Jaik Mickleburgh and Tymal Mills are added to the side that beat Durham Dynamos although Ravi Bopara is missing due to England Lions duty.
Having been thrashed by Hampshire in their opening match, the Eagles responded with a 4-wickets success against Durham Dynamos at Chester-le-Street and Head Coach Paul Grayson was delighted with the application and character shown by his side in the success.
“It was a pleasing performance especially after the way we bowled against Hampshire Royals,” he said.
“You are always looking for a reaction from players after a loss like that and we got it against Durham Dynamos.
“We can’t get away from it, the bowling performance against Hampshire was really disappointing after we had batted well but the way that we bowled at Durham was excellent. David Masters set the tone and he was superb for us and the rest of the guys backed him up really well.
“We got a bit nervy chasing the runs down at the end but we got over the line and that gives us a bit of confidence. We need to build on that, of course, and hopefully, we can add another win on Sunday. We are looking for consistent performances both in one-day cricket and four-day cricket but there’s an art to that.
“We couldn’t afford to go to Durham and lose because we don’t want to find ourselves playing catch-up in this group, so that was a pleasing win and the results so far have shown that this is a difficult group with some very good sides.
“We’ll assess the squad when we get up there and after looking at the wicket, we’ll select the best eleven in order to try and win the game.”
Scotland and Essex have met on six previous occasions in List A competition and the Eagles boast a 100% record.
Essex Eagles squad:
Tom Westley
Bobby Quiney
Jaik Mickleburgh
Mark Pettini
Ben Foakes
James Foster
Greg Smith
Graham Napier
Tim Phillips
Sajid Mahmood
David Masters
Reece Topley
Tymal Mill