Seventh was a hugely disappointing return for a side that had been in Division 1 the season before last. Can they mount a promotion challenge this season?
Strengths
Charl Willoughby joins to offer support to David Masters who took 93 wickets in Division 2 last season - both should prove excellent mentors for young tyros Tymal Mills and Reece Topley. Another acquisition is Alviro Petersen following his acrimonious departure from Glamorgan who will add steel to the batting line-up in the first part of the summer. James Foster is still the best keeper in the country and was also the County's leading run scorer in 2011. Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah add class to a batting line-up, which also features the promising Adam Wheater.
Weaknesses
No-one reached 1,000 Championship runs last season and with Alastair Cook and Bopara lost to England, Shah to the IPL and Petersen to the South African tourists, a lot will once again depend on Foster. Tony Blair wouldn't approve of the distinct lack of spin. If Masters gets injured they could struggle to take wickets.
Main man
With apologies to Masters, the main man as ever at Chelmsford is the superlative James Foster - captain, keeper extraordinaire and a much better batsmen than many give him credit for - including sadly the England selectors over the last ten years.
Look out for
Changes to the breakfast menu at Chelmsford. After the Mervyn Westfield trail, Danish pastries are likely to have been removed from the menu.
Prediction
4th - The two teams coming down from Division 1 look particularly strong so whilst Essex will improve on 2011 they will probably fall short of promotion.
Where next?
Read our Division 1 previews: Durham, Lancashire, Middlesex, Notts, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire and Worcestershire
Division 2 previews: Derbyshire, Essex, Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Leicestershire, Northants and Yorkshire
2011 County Cricket Review: including Heroes of the Season, Best and Worst XIs, and a whole host of other nonsense
County Championship 2011 Preview - Essex
Check out all our Reverse Sweep cricket heroes and zeroes
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Tom Craddock averages 28 from 8 FC matches with 22 wickets. His leg-spin should benefit from the harder Duke ball.
You also seem to have forgotten our tear-away quicks. Mills, Topley & Chambers are more than capable of testing quality batsmen when they are on form. Similarly that bloke Napier is sharp and bowled well last year.
The 2nd half of the championship summer will see a batsman averaging 47 in FC cricket return to the Essex side. His name? Ryan Ten Doeschate.
Posted by: PaulFrame85 | Wednesday, April 04, 2012 at 12:42
Paul, you are right I did err by failing to mention Mills, Topley and Chambers. Fear not, one of those three may well feature in our XI to watch tomorrow morning. I saw Topley in the Championship game at Lord's last year - he looks some prospect
Posted by: The Reverse Sweep | Wednesday, April 04, 2012 at 12:55
And we have both forgotten Greg Smith, who looks like he could be a really good addition to the batting and bowling (particularly at Wantage road)
Posted by: PaulFrame85 | Wednesday, April 04, 2012 at 13:08
You're quite confident about Essex's chances then! It was an oversight of me not to mention Mills and Topley in my piece - that has been corrected. Chambers is a decent bowler too, but from what I recall went a bit backwards last season? If these three and Masters fire you'll have a decent seam attack there.
Posted by: The Reverse Sweep | Wednesday, April 04, 2012 at 16:54