Ten Doeschate is about to start his seventh full season for Essex

Ryan ten Doeschate believes Essex have nothing to fear on their return to the top level of the County Championship.

Essex will be playing in Division One for the first time since 2003, but the Holland all-rounder thinks they can cope with the step-up.

He told BBC Essex: "If we fear teams and worry about our inadequacies we're not going to compete.

"So our approach is not to worry about the gap and just draw from the confidence of last year."

Essex have earned themselves a reputation as a formidable one-day outfit over the past few years, but Ten Doeschate explained they were working hard to transfer that to the four-day game.

"Even we sometimes label ourselves as a one-day team, which I don't think is necessarily the case," said the 29-year-old.

"Good players play both forms of the game and I think it's just about application and changing that mindset to believe we're a good four-day side.

"We can draw a lot of confidence out of the cricket we played in the second half of last season.

"The coaching staff have been emphasising the importance of being good at four-day cricket and the culture is slowly changing and the guys are paying more attention to being four-day cricketers."

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