{"id":168985,"date":"2025-09-29T21:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T21:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/168985\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T21:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T21:32:07","slug":"chris-silverwood-essex-bowler-signings-will-bolster-depth-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/168985\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Silverwood: Essex bowler signings will bolster depth in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essex director of cricket Chris Silverwood believes extra strength in depth in the seam bowling department should stand them in good stead next season.<\/p>\n

The club finished sixth in the County Championship but were without Sam Cook for much of the campaign because of England calls and injury.<\/p>\n

They have already signed Zaman Akhter from Gloucestershire and Mitch Killeen from Durham for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

There are also likely to be more opportunities for 19-year-old Charlie Bennett, who only played two red-ball games, but was their joint leading wicket-taker in the One-Day Cup with 12.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been through the squad for next year and the depth is much better with the two signings we’ve made in the bowling department,” Silverwood told BBC Essex Sport.<\/p>\n

“It gives us more flexibility and depth is one thing we’ve struggled with a little bit this year.<\/p>\n

“It was a concern going into this year but next year looks a lot different, a lot better.”<\/p>\n

Essex will not have opening bat Nick Browne in the squad in 2026 after he recently announced his retirement from the first-class game.<\/a> <\/p>\n

“It’s the right time, definitely,” he said.<\/p>\n

Browne is now hoping to move into coaching after helping out with the Essex women’s team this season.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been doing a lot of that and absolutely loved it, so hopefully I can continue at the club and going down the coaching route would definitely be something I’d be interested in,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Essex director of cricket Chris Silverwood believes extra strength in depth in the seam bowling department should stand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-168985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}