'Champions' Essex have everything to lose - Mascarenhas

Essex's run to the County Championship title last season was one of the most remarkable stories of recent English cricket history. Promoted the previous year from the second division where they had been perennial underachievers, winning the Championship at their first attempt back in the top flight was a quite brilliant achievement. But repeating the feat this year would be an even bigger one.

Second season syndrome describes the difficulties players and teams often experience when attempting to build on the initial success they have when first coming onto the scene. Opponents get to know more about those players and plan accordingly, adopting different tactics to try and stifle them. England's rugby union star Maro Itoje is experiencing something similar during this year's Six Nations after being one of the standout players in last year's competition.

Dimitri Mascarenhas, recently installed as Essex's new Assistant Head Coach, understands that things will be tougher this time around for the current County Champions and warns that they will have to improve. "It's good coming to the Champions. We've got everything to lose I suppose but it's great," he tells Cricbuzz. "Everyone's going to be coming for us and in a sense it's going to be tougher season because to go back-to-back is extremely hard.

"To be brutally honest, if the lads as individuals and a team don't progress, we can't win the Championship again so we've got to get better. That's what every other team will be striving for. If Jamie Porter [75 wickets at 16 last year] can do the same or similar and then with other guys around him get some help who knows what could happen. It's a huge challenge but everyone's really excited about that. We need to lift our game in all aspects."

Mascarenhas, who was born in England but brought up in Australia, had a fine 18-year county career for Hampshire - a one club man - and England for whom he played 20 ODIs and 14 T20Is. Since retiring from playing, Mascarenhas has developed an impressive coaching CV for a man who is only 40 years old. He was for a time New Zealand's bowling coach and was also Head Coach at Otago Volts in New Zealand's domestic competition. Recently, he has held roles with the Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash as well as with Australia's age-group teams.

"It was good to get away from county cricket," he says. "I spent a lot of time here as a player and to go away, learn a hell of a lot in Australia and New Zealand with my coaching and hopefully I can bring some of those experiences back here to a new place; obviously I played all my cricket at Hampshire. Just the excitement of coming back, I've been away for four years now, so it's a good time."

It's been all change in Essex's coaching department since the Championship victory. Following former head coach Chris Silverwood's appointment as England's new bowling coach, Anthony McGrath has been promoted to the top job. After a lengthy search, the club are delighted to secure the services of Mascarenhas to support him. "I'm sure I'm going to learn a hell of a lot from Anthony McGrath and I suppose we are both going to learn off each other. Hopefully, we can produce a winning combination," says Mascarenhas.

His appointment is as Assistant Head Coach but Mascarenhas will have a particular focus on Essex's bowling group. "A lot of my work will be done with the bowlers," he says. "That's what I enjoy doing and more of my expertise is in the bowling area so I'm pretty comfortable doing that. We've got a great stock, there's ten or so fast-bowlers floating around so there's going to be a lot of competition for places. There's enough to work with and hopefully I can help make them better."

Essex have been busy in the off-season. Not only has the coaching team been revamped but they have brought in all-rounder Matt Coles from Kent and have signed Australian fast-bowler Peter Siddle - for the start of the season - and New Zealand quick Neil Wagner as overseas players for the Championship and 50-over one-day tournament. Australian leg-spinner Adam Zampa has been signed for the Vitality T20 Blast.

That recruitment arguably gives Essex's bowling attack a stronger look than last year. Siddle is sure to exploit early English season conditions and left-armer Wagner enjoyed his time at the club last season. He will also provide rough for South African off-spinner Simon Harmer to exploit as he did last year to the tune of 72 red ball wickets. Porter, now recovered from a stress fracture, is one of the most highly rated young seam bowlers in the country and Coles brings plenty of aggression and experience. Others such as Sam Cook, who took 18 wickets in four Championship matches last season, and Paul Walter are full of potential while Zampa is a high-class T20 bowler.

One area where McGrath is keen to improve on is Essex's limited overs cricket. They have failed to win a white ball trophy since 2008 which, given the talent at their disposal in that time, has been a disappointment. Mascarenhas' pedigree in the short formats as a player and his experience coaching and playing in various T20 tournaments - he played in the IPL for Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab as well as the BPL - means he is going to have a key role to play in helping Essex improve that facet of their game.

"All I've seen at the moment are stats," Mascarenhas, who arrived in England last week, says. "You can read as much or as little as you want into the stats. I'm really looking forward to seeing the guys actually play and how they respond under pressure. Pre-season we have a couple of one-day games which will be good to watch and work out how we want to attack it. There's no magical formula and everybody's different.

"We've got Paul Walter who's 6ft 6" and bowls left-arm and swings them and then we've got Matt Coles who is a little bit different. We've got a lot of variety and so everyone will have different roles and if we can really nail that down and the boys can play their roles to the best of their ability, I think we will be a good chance to improve on last season."

Establishing clear roles for each player in the shortest formats is something Mascarenhas believes is crucial for success. It's also about getting the right players doing the right jobs. "We've got Paul Walter, we don't want him running in bowling slower balls every second ball that's for sure. I want him to be banging the wicket as hard as he can and getting as much bounce as he possibly can." That could mean someone like Dan Lawrence, a player who scores in unorthodox areas, regularly opening the batting for example.

After a few days of training outdoors at the County Ground in recent days, Essex head off to the Caribbean next week where they will play the MCC in Barbados in the traditional four-day curtain raiser to the county season. The pitches are likely to be flat - as they were at Chelmsford for the most part last season - and it will be interesting to see how Essex's young attack does given the talk since England's 4-0 Ashes defeat about the lack of pace in county cricket.

"Not everyone can bowl at 150mph," Mascarenhas says. "So we've got to work with what we've got. If you perform well enough in county cricket, I think there's a chance you'll be able to perform well enough at the international level as well. If you outperform everyone else, you're going to get an opportunity. I don't think it's the be all and end all to bowl 90mph. If you can do it, it does help on international wickets because they are different. They are flatter and it's hard work."

Just as this season will be for Essex.