Essex County Cricket manager Peter Edwards warned today dozens of First Class cricketers could be thrown on to the scrapheap at the end of the season.

And as county cricket clubs across the country face up to a looming financial crisis, Edwards confirmed Essex will be looking to strip their 26-strong squad by at least four players.

He revealed: "Unless something miraculous happens, we could be facing our first cash loss in 28 years."

Colchester's England Under-19 duo Graham Napier and Ian Flanagan are likely to escape the axe because they still have a year of their current contracts to run.

But there could be a big question mark hanging over Halstead opening batsman Darren Robinson who is out of contract in the autumn.

Edwards issued his warning following bleak reports that up to 80 of the 400-plus contracted players could be thrown out of work as the 18 First Class counties bid to balance their books.

He said: "Most counties are looking to slash their playing staff to around 18 for next season and we at Essex cannot afford to keep 26 pros.

"Because of existing contracts it is unlikely we will slim down to 18, but we will be looking to reduce our staff to around 21 or 22."

The Essex secretary-manager said many of the current problems were due to a lack of revenue generated by the recent World Cup.

He said: "Essex were expecting to pocket around £140,000 from the tournament, but in the end we only received £75,000."

Edwards outlined a number of reasons for the likely cuts: "We are suffering a backlash from finishing bottom of the Championship last season.

"The Wednesday starts and programme of matches we are now playing results many times in no cricket on Saturdays.

"Our festival gates on Saturdays have shown a massive drop even though we boast bigger gates than many other counties for Championship cricket.

"The possible introduction of central contracts could also result in the loss of our captain Nasser Hussain to England all next year.

"We are 600 members down on last year and gate receipts and sponsorship are very much down.

"If we find ourselves in Division Two next year we face the added prospect of losing even more revenue."

On the brighter side, Edwards stressed: "We simply must have County Cricket for the fans to watch at weekends and Bank Holidays when they're not working.

"One of the suggestions Essex will be making at a meeting on August 23 is for Championship matches to start on Sundays instead of Wednesdays as they do now."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.