Love it or hate it, Twenty20 cricket is back.

Essex Eagles begin their Friends Provident t20 campaign at the Ford County Ground, Chelmsford tonight (7pm start) against Kent Spitfires.

This is the eighth year of domestic Twenty20 cricket and the county have twice reached the semi-finals stage.

In 2006, they lost to eventual winners Leicestershire by 23 runs and two years later at the same stage, Kent gained victory by 14 runs.

Expectations this season are high, with Essex already proving their strength in one-day cricket, having been beaten just once in their First five Clydesdale Bank 40 matches.

A formidable batting line-up is expected to provide plenty of entertainment for a big crowd, who hope to see more of the kind produced by Graham Napier in 2008 when he hit 152 off 58 balls against Sussex Sharks.

Napier will be a focal point of the Essex side, opening the bowling and possibly batting at number three.

Skipper Mark Pettini and Ravi Bopara will open, while Ryan ten Doeschate, James Foster and Grant Flower will provide a mixture of lusty blows and middle order mastery.

Great things are expected of ten Doeschate in particular. He currently tops the PCA’s Most Valuable Player rankings after starting the season in explosive form.

He was considered unfortunate to miss out on an Indian Premier League contract, and has played a number of match-winning performances in both the Championship and CB40.

New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris misses the opening game, but will add further credence that Essex can make it all the way to the final this year once he arrives.

Danish Kaneria will add variety to the bowling, although his availability is again shrouded in mystery, after he was absent from Essex’s Championship match at Nottinghamshire for “personal reasons”.

Paul Grayson, first team coach said: “I’m happy with the squad that we have and we look forward to Scott Styris joining us shortly.

“The key to doing well in the Twenty20 competition is to get out of the blocks quickly and it would have been nice to have had the opportunity of a couple of practice sessions before we start our campaign.

“But we have to get on with things, that’s life and it’s going to be a question of who adapts the quickest between Kent and ourselves.

“You want to get off to a good start in this competition even though there are 16 games this year, because you don’t want to be playing catch-up.

“We’ve played okay in 40-over cricket and hopefully we can adapt quickly, although I don’t think we have totally hit our top form yet.

“We’ve played some decent cricket and there has been some good individual performances but I’m sure there is a lot more to come.”

Clacton’s Michael Comber is included in the squad and may make his Twenty20 debut at some point in the competition.

He impressed on his First Class debut against Bangladesh earlier in the season.