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Glos v Essex Eagles | Match Preview

2 August 2021

Following two last gasp victories on the road to reignite Gloucestershire’s Royal London Cup season, The Shire now welcome Essex Eagles to Bristol County Ground with hopes of a first home win of the campaign.

Essex will be looking to solidify their place in the top three of Group Two with a win having looked mightily impressive in three out of four games so far.

Gloucestershire v Essex Eagles | Live on the Gloscricket Match Centre HERE | 11:00am Start Time

Interim Head Coach Ian Harvey will be hoping his team can carry forward the momentum into the next two home games to give them a chance of qualifying for the knockout stages of the competition.

Youth and experience were both on display as Gloucestershire claimed victory against a depleted Sussex side. Jack Taylor was once again the man to see home the team with the bat, notching his first half-century of the season and putting together the biggest partnership of the match (71) alongside George Scott.

Scott himself has played a crucial part in both wins and is one of four Gloucestershire players to have made more than 100 runs despite batting at six and seven.

Charlesworth looked impressive once again, showing off a plethora of strokes that went for four at Hove before nicking what would have been a wide on 39. Bracey and van Buuren will also be encouraged with their starts but Bracey in particular will be looking to turn that into a big score, similar to how he scored at Durham.

In his second match of the season, Jared Warner took his first wicket in a Gloucestershire shirt and proceeded to take 3/42, including the important wicket of Oli Carter who looked to have been leading Sussex to victory. After a fine display, he should expect to make his debut in front of the Bristol crowd tomorrow.

Tom Smith was, as is often the case, the most miserly of bowlers giving away just 28 runs in his nine overs for three wickets. He not only dismantled the dangerous Sussex middle order but prevented them from getting into rhythm.

Interim Head Coach Ian Harvey has named an unchanged squad for tomorrow’s match:

Essex Eagles have chased in each of their four group matches thus far with three convincing wins and one loss in which they were completely outplayed.

Tom Westley and Alastair Cook have been in good form, both making more than 200 runs at an average above 100. That places each of them in the top ten run scorers so far in the Royal London Cup.

However, the Eagles’ fortunes are not solely dependent on their experienced top order batters. In their season opener against Hampshire when Cook and Buttleman both departed for single digit scores, batters three through to nine all scored a minimum of 25 runs helping them wrap up a chase of 273 runs with 33 balls remaining.

Essex have been equally impressive with the ball thanks to Simon Harmer and Shane Snater who have both claimed nine wickets each to co-lead the wicket-taking charts in the Royal London Cup.

Once again, their depth in talent has been on show with Ryan ten Doeschate, Ben Allison and Aron Nijjar all contributing.

Their one loss in the competition came at the hands of Jack Haynes and Brett D’Oliveira who both scored centuries for Worcestershire at Chelmsford in a 182-run demolition.

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