Guns and arrows in the Essex dressing-room

We may only be one week into the season but this is the best start I’ve been involved in at Essex. In the four-day game against Northamptonshire we played almost perfect cricket. Bowling a side out on the first day at Chelmsford is quite a rarity but we achieved it through consistent line and length with the ball and taking our catches.

A score of 280 was always going to be below-par and we batted exceptionally well to take advantage of that. It may seem like an obvious statement but our new opening batsman Jason Gallian really did look like an opener in his innings of 171. By that I mean he left balls when they didn’t need to be played at but always seemed to cash in on anything short and loose.

Ravi Bopara also made a century in our Championship game and was very unlucky to be given out on 99 the following day at Kent in the Friends Provident Trophy. He thoroughly deserved another hundred and didn’t put a foot wrong in either innings.

Mark Pettini is another who has begun well with two significant innings and it’s nice to see him back to playing the way he can when he’s in form.

In terms of our bowling it was a magnificent effort to bowl out Northants twice on what was a decent wicket to bat on at The Ford County Ground - as our own batsmen proved. It’s a new-look attack with new signings David Masters and Chris Wright making telling contributions already and Andre Nel making an instant impression despite losing his kit on the flight over from South Africa and having to bowl in a new pair of boots purchased from our club shop on the opening day!

All in all it’s been a pretty nice start having only once previously played in an Essex team who has won the first Championship match of the season.

The only down-side to the Kent game for me was a knock on the end of my left thumb when standing up to Ryan ten Doeschate. I suffered a cut underneath the nail that produced a lot of blood and gave me a lot of pain. Luckily I didn’t get another blow to the thumb over the remainder of the game but the bruising came out on the tip of the thumb the next day. I saw a specialist on Monday but luckily there was no break.

At the moment I still feel a little tentative catching one-handed to my left and gripping the bat is also painful. It’s not worth risking making it worse at this early stage of the season so I’ve not been selected for the current Championship game against Derbyshire with the hope that I will have recovered in time for Sunday’s Friends Provident Trophy game against Sussex.

Outside of the cricket it’s darts that is the talk of the Essex dressing-room at the moment. Everyone has bought their own set of arrows and Jason Gallian has supplied us with a board as well. It’s proving a little tricky to find where to put it to avoid team-mates getting struck by wayward shots though – safety is paramount! I’m sure we’ll find a way …

Alastair Cook even has his own games room with a dart board in it to ensure he gets in plenty of practice. In fact he and his house-mate Mark Pettini have even ordered their own playing shirts to really look the part!

Unfortunately the rest of us are not quite as privileged so we have to settle for going over the road to use the local pub’s facilities. As I was playing for the MCC I missed out on our first major tournament a couple of weeks back and that also meant I missed out on being given a nickname. I understand the selection committee will have one sorted for me by the time I make my Darts debut!

One final Cook Report to end with…

Our young left-hander has been in the news recently for his appearance in the latest Cosmo – together with Stuart Broad and James Anderson – with just a cricket bat each to cover their modesty. Not a lot of the Essex boys know about this picture yet but I’ve been emailed a copy which I’ll be blowing up for the dressing room at Derby this week.

Cookie likes to get his “guns” out at any opportunity but this may be taking it just too far. I’ll report back on his team-mates’ reaction next week!

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