Preview: Essex v Warwickshire, LV= Insurance County Championship

England opener Dom Sibley returns to Warwickshire's squad as they start their LV= Insurance County Championship run-in with a visit to champions Essex at Chelmsford.

Sibley has recovered from a broken finger and, with all-rounder Henry Brookes, makes up a 13-man squad with the 11 who lined up at home to Worcestershire two weeks ago. Craig Miles is not quite ready to return to the seam attack following a hip strain but will hopefully play club cricket at the weekend and be back in contention at home to Nottinghamshire next week.

The Bears will be seeking to complete a quickfire double over Essex. Last month they beat them by seven wickets at Edgbaston thanks to 18 wickets from Miles, Olly Hannon-Dalby and Olly Stone and a superb last-day run chase by Rob Yates, Hanuma Vihari and Sam Hain.

They will need to be strong again this week against an Essex side which has moved top of Group A after thrashing Derbyshire at Chelmsford.

"Essex are champions and showed again last week what a good side they are when they lost the first day against Derbyshire but then scored 400 in a day and bowled them out twice," said Bears first team coach Mark Robinson.

"We showed a lot of resilience in that game and that has been a theme of our season so far. We have not played with great fluency as a team but, apart from at Durham, have stayed in games and, on two occasions, gone on to record very good wins."

The Bears probably need another three wins from their last five matches to secure a top two finish in Group A. It is much the tightest of the three groups with nobody having won more than two games and nine points separating the top five teams.

The Bears are fifth, but just nine points off top with a game in hand.

"It is very tight," Robinson said. "We have not scored enough first innings runs so far this season and that has cost us some of the advantage of winning two games because we are short of batting points.

"That is something we are keen to rectify but, at the halfway stage of the group, we are right in the mix for a top-two finish and that's where we want to be."

England all-rounder Chris Woakes is back in Birmingham and out of quarantine following the cancellation of the IPL with England Men’s Head Coach Chris Silverwood confirming yesterday that "the players who have just come out of quarantine after the cancelled IPL, we felt it necessary for them to have an extended break. We need them to recharge mentally. We will then take a view when they return to cricket."

Hannon-Dalby, Stone, Brookes and Liam Norwell will compete for the new ball at Chelmsford, though skipper Will Rhodes might be tempted to take it himself bearing his mind his exploits in the Championship match there in 2019 - match figures of 32.4-12-55-9.

Tomorrow's play will be the Bears' first this season in front of spectators, with 200 Essex members in the ground. Next week's match against Nottinghamshire will see the hugely welcome return of Warwickshire members to Edgbaston.

Squad

Rhodes (c), Bresnan, Briggs, H Brookes, Burgess (wk), Hannon-Dalby, Hain, Lamb, Malan, Norwell, Sibley, Stone, Yates.

How to follow

Warwickshire Members and supporters will be able to follow all the action from the Cloud FM County Ground via the Match Centre on edgbaston.com and through the Edgbaston app (available on iOS and Android).