OWAIS Shah will be making his County Championship debut for Essex today and head coach Paul Grayson has high hopes for the England batsmen.

Shah returned from duty in the Indian Premier League to appear for Essex Eagles for the first time during Sunday’s eight-wicket Clydesdale Bank 40 win over Unicorns.

And he will face his former county Middlesex at the Ford County Ground, where he will hope to build on the 13 runs he scored for the Eagles at the weekend.

“We’ve got plenty of positives to take into this game following our draw last week against Surrey,” Grayson said.

“We have Owais with us now and he’s fitted in very nicely and is a good lad.

“He was unlucky to get run out on Sunday against Unicorns in his first appearance for us.

“But he’s an outstanding player and he’ll probably bat at three for us in all competitions.”

And Grayson added: “We’re are looking forward to seeing him in action against his former county today, when we’ve also got Ravi Bopara available because, unfortunately for him, he’s not been picked for the Test side.”

Shah spent 14 years with Middlesex and joined Essex this winter.

And the 32-year-old right-handed batsmen goes straight into an Essex squad looking to avenge an eight -wicket defeat when the two sides met at Lord’s last month.

Essex will be without Alastair Cook as he has joined up with the England squad ahead of the first Test against Sri Lanka, which starts on Thursday in Cardiff.

But the county are expecting to have Ryan ten Doeschate back from the IPL soon.

“Although we know that we haven’t been at our best in Championship cricket yet, we do feel that we have improved our four-day cricket in the past two or three weeks and have turned the corner,” Grayson added.

“There are still 10 Championship games to go, starting with the Middlesex match, so I’m looking for a big performance against them.

“And then we’ll think about Gloucestershire after that which will take us to the halfway point in the Championship season.

“If we can get at least one win from these two matches, then that will lift us up the table and give us a boost before we turn our attention to Twenty20 cricket.”

Essex are currently fifth in the Championship table, with Middlesex third in the standings after winning three of their five matches so far.