Essex County Cricket Club close in on overseas bowler

Grayson's Essex are heading to Barbados for the second year running

Essex say they are close to announcing the signing of an overseas bowler for the first half of the 2011 season.

The county has opted not to retain Pakistani leg-spinner Danish Kaneria, who has been their overseas player for five of the last six seasons.

Head coach Paul Grayson told BBC Essex: "The bowler we're after will be joining us for the first two and half months of the season.

"This guy has got a good record, we're quite excited by this signing."

Grayson admitted that finding a player from abroad has not been an easy task.

He said: "We've been working on it for quite a while, a lot are at the IPL and a lot are at the World Cup.

"We've got eight championship matches in the first two months of the season, so we just feel we could do with another bowler to help the rest of the guys along."

Essex are about to embark on a two week pre-season trip to Barbados, before their county championship season starts at home to Kent on April 8th.

They hope to have Ravi Bopara and Alastair Cook available for that game, but new signing Owais Shah and all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate are playing in the IPL and will miss the first six weeks of the campaign.