Larry's Lowdown: We weren’t ready to go up (From Gazette)

Larry's Lowdown: We weren’t ready to go up

2:20pm Thursday 1st September 2011 in Essex County Cricket Club news By Paul Grayson, Essex Cricket Club coach

PERSONALLY I don’t think we were ready to go back up into division one of the County Championship this year.

I don’t think we are ready because of the squad size, and the younger players we have got.

And I think the likes of Jaik Mickleburgh, Adam Wheater and Tom Westley will be better for another year at this level.

I think we will be better equipped for a promotion push next year.

But we will need to make a better start because this season in the first eight we won one, lost two and drew the others.

I think our CB40 campaign was very good up until recently where we lost to Somerset twice.

But the real disappointment for me this year has been in the Twenty20.

I thought the balance of our side was good and I expected us to qualify from that tough southern group.

If you look at the table, we played 16, won seven and lost seven, with a couple of wash-outs.

And that is a clear indication of how we have paid the price for our inconsistency.

So now we have two matches left and we will be trying to win both.

It is important for us to create a good environment which will be in place for the start of next season.

I am not of the opinion that we will just play all our youngsters now and settle for finishing second or third from bottom.

If we can’t finish second in the Championship then we will look to finish third.