Essex Eagles are looking to make it a quickfire double victory when they host the visiting Kent Spitfires this evening in the Friends Life t20 competition.

James Foster’s men recorded their first win in this year’s South Group when they beat the side from across the Bridge by a 47 runs margin and are now looking to add to the tally with another success in front of a passionate Chelmsford crowd.

The Eagles have named a 13-man squad that includes Mark Pettini who sustained a contusion to the hip on Thursday that forced him to miss the following night’s victory over Kent.

Head Coach Paul Grayson was delighted with the manner of Friday’s win after the defeat 24 hours earlier against Middlesex. “It was the perfect response although there were parts of our cricket that were okay at Lord’s.” he said.

“I thought we played well at Canterbury, we got off to a good start and Greg Smith played nicely with a quick 19 and his partnership with Hamish was good. The powerplay was excellent for us.

“We lost our way a little bit in the middle of the game but Owais (Shah) and Tendo (Ryan ten Doeschate) got us going again. The contribution from Owais was a match-winning score on that type of wicket and then I thought that the opening spell from Shaun (Tait) and Napes (Graham Napier) was outstanding in that first six overs, backed by Reece (Topley) and the other guys.

“So overall it was a sold performance, there are still a few areas to work on; I thought our fielding was a little bit sloppy at times but the most important thing is that we’ve got 2 points to get us going.

“Sometimes you have to win ugly and do the ugly things first which I thought we did quite well against Kent. We couldn’t afford to go there and lose but we are up and running and we have some big matches to come.

“The thing about our team is that when we get going, we have got some dangerous players and we’ll take some beating.”