Worcestershire vs Essex, County Championship One, Today Match Prediction

WOR vs ESS Match Prediction & Analysis

With draws more popular than ever in the early rounds of this year's County Championship Division One, both Essex and Worcestershire will be disappointed by the number of victories they have put on the board so far.

Essex begin this round of fixtures in fifth place with a record of one win, one defeat and three draws in the campaign.

Worcestershire escaped with a draw from their season opener away at Somerset but have since fallen to four successive losses and confidence will be low in the home dressing room.

Bottom of the table and already trailing their nearest challengers Somerset by 29 points, there is plenty of discontent at New Road and captain Brett D'Oliveira will have a big job to lift the spirits of his team.

TEAMS PREVIEW

Worcestershire Preview

Although the margin of defeat was only 47 runs down at Hove against Sussex in the last round of fixtures, Worcestershire were chasing the game throughout and they must get off to a better start in this home fixture against Essex.

Opener Jake Libby will come into the game with plenty of confidence after he nearly single-handedly took his side to victory on the south coast last week. Requiring 361 in the fourth innings of the match, he hit 167 but when he was the eighth wicket to fall any chance of an away win went out of the window at the same time.

New Zealander Henry Nicholls is an experienced and classy player although he will be disappointed with his early returns where he has made at least 25 but is yet to go beyond 42 across his four innings.

With the ball, the opening pair of Tom Taylor and Ben Allison enjoyed the game against Sussex and will be key, as will young left-arm spinner Fateh Singh who has taken three wickets in two of his three innings this season.

Worcestershire Predicted Playing XI:

Ben Gibbon, Jake Libby, Gareth Roderick (wk), Henry Nicholls, Kashif Ali, Ethan Brookes, Brett D'Oliveira (c), Matthew Waite, Fateh Singh, Tom Taylor, Ben Allison

Essex Preview

Although the season has not started quite as brightly as Essex would have desired, they will be looking forward to taking on Worcestershire once more as they are the only team they have beaten so far in this campaign!

Back in mid April, it was the runs of Paul Walter at the top of the order with useful contributions further down the order from Noah Tain, Simon Harmer and Shane Snater who made the difference and Kasun Rajitha who was the most dangerous with the ball.

Last time out for Essex, the side showed plenty of character to hold off Yorkshire and secure an unlikely draw. Requiring 520 to win and starting day four on 64/4, Tom Westley's side dug in and finished on 273/9.

They will take confidence from that rear-guard action and many expect Essex to be too strong for Worcestershire.

Essex Predicted Playing XI:

Dean Elgar, Charlie Allison, Tom Westley (c), Jamie Porter, Robin Das, Matt Critchley, Michael Pepper (wk), Noah Thain, Simon Harmer, Shane Snater, Kasun Rajitha

Weather Conditions

The temperature will get up to around 21 degrees across the opening three days of this fixture before a slightly cooler day four. No rain is expected across the match.

WOR vs ESS Pitch Report

New Road is a famous old ground, next to the river, with plenty of run scoring opportunities. Expect assistance for the bowlers from the pitch with a par score of 350 in the first innings.

Toss: To Bat

With the weather conditions set fair throughout the four scheduled days of the match, we predict that both teams will want to use the best batting conditions on day one and choose to bat first.