County Championship: Division Two guide

All eyes will be on a Graeme Smith-led Surrey as they and Derbyshire bid for an instant return to the top flight. Here's our county-by-county guide to the season ahead with the help of Sky Sports' David Fulton...

ESSEX

Captain: James Foster
Head Coach: Paul Grayson
Ins: Monty Panesar (Essex)
Outs: Maurice Chambers (Northamptonshire)
Overseas: TBC
Sky Sports exclusives:
Cook: I can't discuss KP The 2013 season did not go to plan for Essex. They finished outside the promotion places in the County Championship again, their cause not helped by being bowled out for 20 - a new low for the county - by eventual champions Lancashire. With no joy in the limited-overs competitions either, although they did make it to Finals Day in Twenty20 cricket, the pressure is surely on director of cricket Paul Grayson ahead of the new campaign. Hopes should be high considering the squad at Chelmsford, particularly now Monty Panesar has signed permanently. The left-arm spinner fills a glaring need in the squad, while he will hope a fresh start will help rekindle his international career. Essex, though, won't mind if England go with someone else as the long-term replacement for the now-retired Graeme Swann. The pace bowling looks strong - Graham Napier enjoyed a stellar season, and just not just with the ball either, making plenty of runs down the order to help bail out the miss-firing batsmen, and the evergreen David Masters continues to torture top orders up and down the country. Reece Topley wasn't far behind the senior seam duo in terms of number of wickets taken, but fellow left-armer Tymal Mills needs to turn his obvious potential into consistent performances. Essex also boast plenty of all-rounders in their squad, so there is no over-reliance on just a couple of players. Ravi Bopara should be available for decent stretches of the summer and his runs could be crucial - no batsman last year topped four-day skipper James Foster's 883 first-class runs. This year, Ryan ten Doeschate will take over leadership duties in the limited-overs competitions. Key player: Ben Foakes: It would be easy to pick one of the more established names at Essex such as Bopara or Masters, but Foakes is someone who the county needs to have a good year. He has been tipped as a future international due to his abilities behind the stumps, so will want to do better than last year's haul of 639 runs at an average of 35.50. David says: "They've been a real force in one-day cricket but this could be the year they go up in the Championship. New recruit Monty Panesar did OK in the game against the MCC and you know what you're going to get from him, but I just wonder if England are looking past him - perhaps to Scott Borthwick or Simon Kerrigan - as they start this new era." One to watch: Reece Topley "There's been a lot of talk about Tymal Mills because of his pace but Topley is a very fine, tall young bowler who swings it and is quick enough. He won't blow people away as Mills might but he adds the sort of variation to the attack that England could probably do with and has won Under 19 honours."

GLAMORGAN

Captain: Mark Wallace
Head coach: Toby Radford
Ins:
Outs: Simon Jones (released)
Overseas: Jacques Rudolph
Sky Sports exclusives:
Morris targets Glamorgan success Much has changed at the SWALEC Stadium since the end of 2013, with a new coach in Toby Radford, a new director of cricket - former ECB chief Hugh Morris - and a new overseas player in experienced South African batsman Jacques Rudolph. But after last season's Division Two effort, changes were needed. Glamorgan finished eighth, with only hopeless Leicestershire behind them, despite getting nearly 2,500 runs from James Allenby and Murray Goodwin. Thankfully both return this season and, along with Rudolph who will be arriving later in April, runs at the top of the order should not be a problem. If they get bigger contributions from 'keeper-captain Mark Wallace and a couple of their less-experienced players, they should be competitive. Michael Hogan took more than 100 wickets last season but he is in desperate need of some support, especially with seamer Mike Reed out for the first two months with a knee injury - his 2013 performances were enough to earn an England Performance Squad call. Allenby and Hogan impressed in the Yorkshire Bank 40 as well, with Glamorgan finishing second in their group and making it to the final, only for their batting to flop against the pace of Stuart Broad and Ajmal Shahzad. The Twenty20 captaincy goes back to Allenby this season, and he should be their most valuable player across all formats after a brilliant 2013 which ended with him signing a new four-year deal. Key Player: Jim Allenby. Tough to ignore Michael Hogan, but Allenby's 2013 season was up there with the best you will see. Eight fifties and a couple of centuries as he tallied 1,116 runs in a struggling four-day team and he took 26 wickets to go with them. The pattern was exactly the same in 40 and 20-over cricket as well, clearly making him one of the country's leading all-rounders. David says: "It's all change off the pitch with Hugh Morris coming in as chief executive and Toby Radford taking over as coach but when you look at the squad on paper you can't see them being a massive force and may have to settle for mid-table. They had some success in one-day cricket last summer and I suspect that will be their route to a decent season. Jim Allenby and Graham Wagg remain good cricketers and Dean Cosker is still a canny one-day performer." One to watch: Chris Cooke "At 27 he's not a spring chicken but he's a guy who can really put bat to ball and be quite belligerent. They've got a lot of senior players and a few young guns with it all to prove and Cooke is at the right age to be right at the heart of things."

GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Captain: Michael Klinger
Head coach: John Bracewell
Ins: Tom Smith (Middlesex), Will Tavare
Outs: Richard Coughtrie, Paul Muchall, Ed Young (all released)
Overseas: Michael Klinger Gloucestershire are banking on the same personnel as last season to show some improvement in 2014, with little having changed at Bristol since their 2013 disappointments. Struggles in the four-day game were mixed in with some awful limited-overs results, most notably in the Twenty20 format, where they were among the worst teams in the domestic game. Scoring runs should not be a big problem with Michael Klinger returning as overseas player looking to add to the 1,105 he compiled in Division Two last season. Alex Gidman and Hamish Marshall also finished in the top 15 in the averages. Add in the power of Chris Dent, who was their fourth batsman to pass 1,000 runs, and 'keeper Gareth Roderick and they have a line-up that can cope with any team in Division Two. Tom Smith comes over from Middlesex as their only permanent senior addition, and he has plenty to prove after an up-and-down loan spell with the county last season. But their deficiencies with the ball have not been dealt with and it could be a long season if Will Gidman is unable to reproduce his 2013 heroics, when he took 50 wickets, and teenager Craig Miles suffers any kind of sophomore slump. Key Player: Will Gidman Last season saw a series of impressive seam-bowling performances last season from Alex's brother, taking 50 wickets in 13 games, including a career-best 6/15 and 10 wickets in a match for the first time. A few more runs would have been handy but you can't have it all and his batting remains decent for a bowling all-rounder. David says: "The ground has been redeveloped but the squad is little-changed. They haven't had much of a budget which I know has been frustrating for John Bracewell but it has given some younger players a chance. I don't think they'll go up - or returning to the days when they were winning one-day trophies - but I can see them becoming increasingly competitive over the next two years." One to watch: Liam Norwell "A six foot six inch fast bowler who has got a bit about him, he's impressed me the couple of times I've seen him. Like David Payne, the left-armer who has been around for a bit now and done well in patches, he needs to put his head above the parapet and have a consistent season. Watch out for the Gidman brothers, Alex and Will, too."