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Double Winners Sussex begin the 2007 season with the annual match MCC v County Champions at Lord’s on Friday 13 April and the domestic season begins officially on Wednesday 18 April at home in a local derby against Kent in the Liverpool Victoria County Championship.

Our first ECB Trophy match (formerly the C&G Trophy) will be away against Somerset on Sunday 29 April, the semi-finals will take place on Wednesday 20 June and Sussex will be hoping to secure their place.

The ever-popular Twenty20 Cup arrives in Sussex on Sunday 24 June when the Sharks take on the Middlesex Crusaders.  And with two Friday night fixtures, against Surrey Brown Hats on 29 June and Hampshire Hawks on 6 July it’s the perfect way to begin a great weekend in Brighton and Hove.

The Sharks’ NatWest Pro40 season begins on Monday 6 August with the Gloucestershire Gladiators as our opponents.  This year our Division 1 Pro40 opposition are Lancashire, Warwickshire, Essex, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire.

Sri Lanka A will be touring England and will be playing Sussex in a three-day match from Thursday 19 July.

Sussex Chief Executive, Gus Mackay, commented, ‘2007 will be a challenging year for us having won the Double in 2006.  We will be looking to consolidate our position in all competitions and the fixtures have certainly given us a lot to look forward to.  We have four home Twenty20 matches and two of these are on Friday night, which will delight our support base and virtually guarantee a full house.  We begin our Liverpool Victoria County Championship campaign with a local derby against Kent at home and are lucky to end our season at Hove against Worcestershire on 19 September.  The NatWest Pro40 provides a great feature to the late summer after the high-impact of the Twenty20 and it all makes for an extremely exciting year.’

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All-rounder Ravinder Bopara has signed a one-year contract extension with Essex that will keep him at the Club until the end of the 2008 season.

The 21-year-old continued to progress during the 2006 campaign, scoring 806 runs @ 38.38 in the Liverpool Victoria County Championship along with 19 wickets @ 47.47. Over the course of the year he achieved Championship career best figures in both batting – 159 against Glamorgan at Cardiff in April – and bowling – 5-75 against Surrey at Colchester in August.

In addition, the Newham-born cricketer played a major role in Essex’s successful one-day season – during which they won both the NatWest Pro40 and Twenty20 Floodlit Cup – by contributing significantly with bat, ball and in the field.

He was rewarded for his efforts by receiving a call-up to the ECB Academy and will fly out to Perth today (Wednesday) for a training camp.

Bopara told the Essex CCC website (www.essexcricket.org.uk):

“The only reason I haven’t signed a longer extension of two or three years is because I don’t know what’s going to happen down the line. I can see where my career is going to go over the next year/year-and-a-half so I’m happy to sign until 2008 and then look ahead from there.

“I’ve got no interest in going anywhere else but I just want to keep my options open. I feel good about playing for Essex because we are winning competitions and getting through to latter stages of competitions.”

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