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Essex County Cricket Club has made the following changes to its playing structure:

Mark Pettini – First Team Captain
James Foster – First Team Vice-Captain
Paul Grayson – First Team Coach
John Childs – Second Team Coach (also retaining role of Academy Director)

Essex Chief Executive David East explained the re-structure:
“The Cricket Committee discussed the captaincy and the structure of our coaching squads at length at a meeting on Monday June 25 and reached the conclusion that we strongly believed Mark Pettini had demonstrated that he had the ability and the will and drive to take the side forward. As a result we made that recommendation to the General Committee – which is where the final decision resides – which was endorsed at a meeting yesterday (Wednesday July 4). As of now, Mark Pettini becomes our First-Team Captain, the Vice-Captain will become James Foster and Ronnie Irani will remain in the figurehead position of Club Captain for the remainder of this season. As of 2008, following the departure of Ronnie Irani, Mark will take over as Captain of the Club.

“In addition, Paul Grayson is going to move from his responsibilities with the second team to become First Team Coach. John Childs is going to have a dual role of Second Team Coach and Academy Director. Graham Gooch’s position remains unchanged as Batting Coach.”

Mark Pettini issued the following statement:
“It’s been quite nice over the last month or so to have had some time to ease my way into the job (since previous Captain Ronnie Irani stopped playing). Now that it’s official I have the second half of the season to really get stuck into the job and hopefully set myself up for next year.

“Captaincy is not something I’ve thought about much over the last few years – I’ve just been trying to cement my place in the side – but now that chance has been given to me there are certainly some great names that I’ll be following.

“I’m confident that I will be up to the task. Everyone has doubts when they start doing something new – particularly something as big as the captaincy – but we’ve achieved some really great results over the last few weeks. There was a period where we won five games in a row with me in charge recently so that gave me a lot of confidence in terms of thinking that I was able to do the captaincy.”

David East on Mark Pettini’s appointment as First Team Captain:
“Obviously upon Ronnie Irani’s retirement it was evident that we needed to make some decisions in terms of going forward. Mark Pettini has been doing an excellent job when deputising for Ronnie, initially through injury, but now following his retirement.”

David East on Paul Grayson’s appointment as First Team Coach:
“He was certainly the choice of the senior players because he is a very popular member of the dressing room. Everyone has been very impressed in terms of the support he has given to the side when he’s been available to do so. When the situation arose that Ronnie Irani had to retire through injury and the Committee made a decision that Mark Pettini should take over Mark was then very keen that Paul should support him in this role.”

Paul Grayson on his new position:
“My new role is First Team Coach to work with our new Captain Mark Pettini. When Ronnie Irani was in charge he didn’t really need a regular coach all the time – we always shared it between myself and Graham Gooch – but now that Mark’s got the job he feels that he wants someone with him all the time and I’m delighted to take that role. Ronnie has done a magnificent job in leading the side over the last few years so I hope that myself and Mark can now bring the County further success in the years to come.”

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India have announced their test squad that will tour England beginning their visit with a four-day match against double champions Sussex, starting on Saturday July 7.

Rahul Dravid leads a 16-man squad that includes former skipper Sourav Ganguly, while Sachin Tendulkar is named as vice-captain.

Gus Mackay, Chief Executive Of Sussex County Cricket Club, said “We are delighted to welcome India to Hove and to host such a high profile game. We are looking forward to working with existing stakeholders, local businesses and communities to ensure the game is a success across the county”.

Tickets for the four-day game are now available on www.sussexcricket.co.uk or Tel: 0871 282 200.

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The Twenty20 Cup trio of Surrey, Leicestershire and Somerset have all failed in their bids to cut the gap at the top of the Bartercard Power Rankings in July.

All three counties have seen their overall scores decrease this month but only Surrey have remainedin the same position in the rankings (3rd), Leicestershire drop one place to 5th but after three straight defeats Somerset have dropped seven places and now sit outside the top ten in 12th place.

There is better news though for Warwickshire thanks to a run of four straight victories the Bears have moved up three places into the top ten and now find themselves in 8th place. If they continue this from during the second half of the Twenty20 Cup they could end the month in the top five.

The other big movers this month are the Lancashire Lightning. Going into this years Twenty20 Cup the Lightning sat in 24th place in the Rankings but three big victories this month has seen the Lightning move up eight places to 16th.

The Yorkshire Phoenix have had a horrible month, with only one win under their belts the Phoenix have dropped eleven places from 13th to 24th, its a similar story for the Gloucestershire Gladiators who drop from 16th in the rankings to 24th.

Things are even worse for the Durham Dynamos, a team who have never got to grips with the shortest form of the game, despite beating Leicestershire in a 13 over slog the Dynamos on the back of three heavy defeats have slipped four places in the rankings from 51st to 55th.

For a sixth straight month the Victorian Bushrangers, winners of back to back KFC Big Bash titles remain at the top of the rankings with the Sialkot Stallions in second place.

The Karachi Dolphins have moved up two places in the rankings to 4th while Tamil Nadu (6th) and the Lahore Lions (7th) have both benefited from Somerset’s slip in the rankings and both moved up one place.

The top ten is rounded out by Chilaw Marians CC in 9th and the Faisalabad Wolves, winners of the 2005 ABN-AMRO Twenty20 Cup in 10th.

Bartercard Power Rankings Background
The Bartercard Power Rankings are the only rankings system in the world that rank all domestic Twenty20 teams from England, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India.

The rankings are based on a number of important factors including runs scored, totals chased the loss of wickets and margins of victory. A teams rating is then worked out by dividing the points scored in each game by the number of matches played, the totals are then given to the nearest whole number.

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