Essex vs Warwickshire, County Championship Divison One, Today Match Prediction

ess vs warks Match Prediction & Analysis

Essex will be taking on Warwickshire in their second head-to-head encounter of the season. This will be their 4th game at home with a win and 2 draws in the previous outings at the County Ground. 

The hosts will be coming into this match on the back of a huge 196-run win against Somerset in their last match here. Sir Alastair Cook has been the hero for Essex in their last couple of matches. 

Warwickshire have also been in great form lately. After two back to back wins, they ended up drawing the game at Trent Bridge. They scored 571 runs batting first and then bowled out Nottinghamshire for just 155 runs. The visiting team is a force to reckon with and the key bowlers in Essex, Jamie Porter and Simon Harmer need to bring their A-game for this game.

The likes of C Rushworth, O Hannon-Dalby, and Hasan Ali in the Warwickshire bowling attack cleaned up the Essex lineup in their last encounter. Skipper Tom Westley and all-rounder Matthew Critchley will play a key role for Essex in the middle order.

TEAMS PREVIEW

Essex Preview

Essex kicked off the season on a winning note at Lord’s as they beat Middlesex by 97 runs with Jamie Porter picking up 9 wickets in the match. 4 Draws and 1 loss later, Essex finally secured their 2nd win of the season. 

And this time it was on their home turf where Sir Alastair Cook scored a hundred and Porter picked 6 wickets in the match. Cook is in great touch and scored 72 and 99 in the previous match against Nottinghamshire. 

It wasn’t just Cook who missed out on a hundred in that innings. Skipper Tom Westley was out on 95 at number 3 as the match ended in a draw. As Dan Lawrence joins the England squad for the first two Ashes, Paul Walter comes in at number 4.

The number 4 is a crucial place in this lineup and Walter will have a key role to play for Essex in building partnerships. Matthew Critchley is another in-form batsman in this side and is an asset at number 5.

In the lower order, Simon Harmer has proved to be very handy and consistently made significant contributions. The all-rounder adds depth to the lineup and great strength to the bowling attack. In addition to Porter and Harmer who lead the wicket-taking charts for Essex, Critchley and Sam Cook are other key bowlers to watch out for.

Essex Predicted Playing XI:

Nick Browne, Sir Alastair Cook, Tom Westley (c), Paul Walter, Matthew Critchley, Feroze Khushi, Simon Harmer, William Buttleman (wk), Ben Allison, Sam Cook, Jamie Porter

Warwickshire Preview

With 3 wins from 6 matches, and only one loss, Warwickshire are second in the Division One points table with 93 points. Will Rhodes’s team played Essex at home in Birmingham earlier in the season. They bowled out the visiting Essex for just 126 runs bowling first and led by 116 runs after the 1st innings.

The win against Essex wasn’t a convincing one for Warwickshire as their batting struggled in both innings. They lost 6 wickets on their way to a 100-run target. Sam Hain, the middle-order batsman continued his good run of form in the next match as he scored a hundred against Nottinghamshire. 

While the game ended in a draw, there were some batting gains for Warwickshire. Alex Davies and Dan Mousley also made significant contributions with the bat taking the team’s total to 571 runs.

There is great depth in this batting order and almost all batters played game-changing knocks for the side in recent outings. Dan Mousley, Ed Barnard, and Michael Burgess have shown great promise in the lower order.

C Rushworth and O Hannon-Dalby were the key bowlers responsible for Warwickshire’s win over Essex in their previous clash. Ed Barnard and Hasan Ali need to step up and deliver breakthroughs so that skipper Rhodes isn’t completely dependent on Rushworth and Hannon-Dalby.

Warwickshire Predicted Playing XI:

Alex Davies, Robert Yates, Will Rhodes (c), Sam Hain, Dan Mousley, Ed Barnard, Michael Burgess (wk), Hasan Ali, Danny Briggs, Chris Rushworth, Oliver Hannon-Dalby

PITCH AND WEATHER CONDITIONS

Weather Conditions

It is a great pitch to bat on but there is also some movement for seam bowlers who can exploit the slope at this venue to their benefit. The weather will be mostly sunny on day 1 but will get cloudy on day 2 onward and the seam bowlers will get some movement through the air.

Venue Details

County Ground in Chelmsford will host its 4th match of the season. Two of the three games played here so far ended in a draw. A 350-run total should be quite achievable for the team batting first at this venue. As the forecast for day 2 and 3 is cloudy weather, the team batting second would likely struggle to take a lead in the game.

Toss: To Bat

It is a great venue for batting and the scores in the 2nd and 3rd innings haven’t been great so far this season. Batting first and scoring a 350+ score would put the team in a really strong position. Both teams have in-form batters and would be keen on batting first and piling runs on the board.