Essex Eagles v Kent Spitfires (Thu, 7pm)

Thursday 17th August 2017

Men’s First Team

Essex Eagles v Kent Spitfires (Thu, 7pm)

Kent Spitfires are aiming to out-gun Essex Eagles to complete a NatWest T20 Blast double and keep quarter-final qualification hopes alive.

The Spitfires side are the only side to have four batsmen with 300 runs or more so far with Joe Denly (400), Daniel Bell-Drummond (360), Sam Northeast (325) and Sam Billings (338) scoring in a stop-start campaign.

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Opener Joe Denly said: “We’ve been hot and cold throughout this season. We’ve won some great games but, in the mix, there have also been some poor performances.

“The trick, as we found in 2007, is to build momentum, even if it’s really late in the qualifiers. Then, to take that confidence with you into the quarters and on to finals day, as we did at Edgbaston.

“Time will tell if we can achieve that again this year, but we’ll be giving it our best shot for sure.”

The Spitfires name an unchanged side to cross the Thames, knowing two wins will secure a spot in the last eight in the quarter-finals.

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Kent Spitfires squad: 23 Daniel Bell-Drummond, 6 Joe Denly, 17 Sam Northeast (c), 7 Sam Billings (wk), 83 Jimmy Neesham, 10 Alex Blake, 3 Darren Stevens, 25 Calum Haggett, 26 Matt Coles, 20 Adam Milne, 15 James Tredwell, 8 Mitch Claydon, 11 Imran Qayyum, 22 Charlie Hartley

Essex Eagles squad: 6 Varun Chopra, 31 Adam Wheater, 25 Ravi Bopara, 27 Ryan ten Doeschate (c), 99 Ashar Zaidi, 7 James Foster (wk), 22 Paul Walter, 11 Simon Harmer, 5 Mohammad Amir, 44 Jamie Porter, 28 Dan Lawrence, 67 Callum Taylor, 30 Matt Dixon, 16 Sam Cook.

Eagles v Spitfires stats:

  • The Spitfires won the reverse fixture earlier this season; it was only their second victory in 10 attempts versus the Eagles (L8).
  • Essex Eagles have won three successive matches coming into this game having previously managed one in four beforehand (L3).
  • Adam Milne (Kent Spitfires) has taken his 11 wickets at a strike rate of just 9.7 this season; including career-best T20 figures of 5-11.

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