Essex continue their NatWest T20 Blast with back-to-back matches as they entertain Glamorgan on Friday at the ECG, but first up is a trip to Canterbury on Thursday to face Kent Spitfires.
The two games follow a Championship match at the start of the week although Essex players enjoyed an unscheduled day's rest by beating Derbyshire inside three days.
"It's been tough for all county players in the last two or three weeks with all the Championship matches and Twenty 20 games," said Head coach Paul Grayson acknowledging the demands of a heavy schedule. "It's been a crazy schedule."
"As coaches, we ask players to put in a shift day in and day out, they do the hard work and so it's nice for our players that they can get their feet up for a well-earned rest before we have and two big T20 games on Thursday and Friday night.
"If we can get a win against Kent and follow-up with victory over Glamorgan, then the Twenty20 competition will be starting to look good for us, but we know that both those sides will be a stiff challenge for us.
"We've played eight matches and won four and lost four. But we've now put three successive wins together and naturally, that has put some confidence back in the camp and given up some momentum.
"It was a very ruthless, clinical performance in the win against Sussex in our last match, in fact our bowling in the last three matches has been top-class, our fielding has steadily improved and obviously the return of Mark Pettini after injury to the top of the batting order has made a difference. His experience and his quality has come through.
"We always had confidence in the group that they would turn around that early season form, it was a tough start because of injuries and players unavailability but we knew that once everyone had returned and we got a bit of confidence back, that we would prove ourselves to be a good one-day side.
The Eagles have named a 13-man squad for both matches that includes David masters and Reece Topley who both missed the four-day win against Derbyshire. "David has been suffering with a groin strain although we expect him to be for both Twenty20 matches while we are having to monitor carefully Reece's recovery programme following his back injury," Grayson explained.
Essex Eagles squad (from): Mark Pettini, Jesse Ryder, Tom Westley, Ravi Bopara, Ryan ten Doeschate, Nick Browne, James Foster, Kishen Velani, Graham Napier, David Masters, Shaun Tait, Reece Topley, Aron Nijjar.
