Essex travel to Cardiff missing key players for the County Championship clash with Glamorgan that starts today.

Tom Westley (broken thumb) and Mark Pettini (hip injury) have been joined on the injury list by Jesse Ryder who suffered a hamstring injury during the NatWest T20 Blast match with Hampshire. Ryder will miss the four-day match but hopes to be passed fit to feature in the limited-overs match at Cardiff on Friday evening.

However, the Essex squad has been boosted by the news that Ryan ten Doeschate will be available for selection following his arrival back from the IPL where he had been playing for Kolkata Knight Riders.

Essex Head Coach, Paul Grayson said, “It's all hands to the pump at the moment as you’ve seen by the one-day side. But we have some excellent young talent at this club and in one respect, it’s good that they can get their chance to prove themselves.”

Essex suffered a home defeat by Gloucestershire in their previous County Championship match but the West Country side then went onto beat pre-season Division Two favourites Lancashire at Old Trafford. “I can’t see any side running away with this division this year,” continued Grayson.

“I think there will be lots of twists and turns and it might go right down to the last game because there will be a number of clubs who fancy their chances of going up this year. On the evidence of what we’ve seen so far, everyone is capable of beating everyone and what we have to do is to make sure that we are in that mix towards the end of the season. To do that, we have to keep playing good cricket.

“We had a setback against Gloucestershire and then had a week away from red ball cricket but now it’s back to the bread and butter stuff after a couple of NatWest T20 Blast matches. Glamorgan are a decent side, they’ve got a good bowling attack led by Michael Hogan and it’s going to be a tough week for us down there because we’ve got a Twenty20 match with them on Friday.

“After a couple of good performances in our opening two Championship matches against Kent and Surrey, we need to get back on track with a good performance at the SWALEC Stadium.

“In the past, whenever we’ve had a really disappointing performance, the squad have shown their character by bouncing back and performing well in the next game. That’s what we are aiming to do in Cardiff over the next few days.”