Essex cricketers will be flying high as the Essex Eagles every Sunday for the next four years.

And the new-born Eagles will be soaring to great heights when they launch their revamped Sunday National League programme in a few weeks time.

Fronted by a new soccer style Eddie The Eagle mascot, skipper Nasser Hussain and his County Ground team-mates will be sporting a large Eagle logo on their even more brightly coloured old gold, red and blue outfits.

The county's traditional three sea-axes emblem will also be emblazoned on the players kit as before.

"It's all part of the razzmatazz surrounding CGU's £6million sponsorship of the new-look, two division National League," said Essex secretary-manager Peter Edwards, who jokingly added: "I wanted to call us the Essex Dinosaurs. We could even have renamed the ground Jurassic Park!

"The Eddie The Eagle mascot and the new Eagle name and logo are only three of a number of exciting innovations being introduced to make Sunday league cricket more of a spectacle for the fans.

"We are attempting to make it more colourful and entertaining for spectators. The whole idea is to promote a much higher profile for the National League.

"We are elso contemplating the prospect of running a colourful train round the boundary edge from which sweets and other goodies will be thrown into the crowd."

Twenty of the matches will be played under floodlights and Essex Eagles are scheduled for only one - against Lancashire Lightning at Old Trafford on Saturday, July 3.

Edwards said the county settled on the new Essex Eagles name because he believed there was once an Essex Eagle years ago.

He is now inviting anyone wishing to don the new Eddie The Eagle mascot's outfit to contact the county's commercial manager David East on (01245) 252420.

Essex will be competing in the top division - along with other counties such as the Gloucestershire Gladiators and Hampshire Hawks - where CGU's backing guarantees the winners a prize of £53,000 with the Division Two champions picking up only £15,000.

"That greatly concerns me," said Edwards. "With three-up and three-down each season there is certain to be a lot of movement within the league.

"And if the prize money differencial is adopted for the County Championship we are going to see the formation of an elite group where the good players want to join the rich counties."

New CGU Sunday League structure

Division One

Essex Eagles, Gloucestershire Gladiators, Hampshire Hawks, Kent (TBA), Lancashire Lightning, Leicesrshire Foxes, Warwickshire Bears, Worcestershire Royals, Yorkshire Phoenix.

Division Two

Derbyshire Scorpions, Durham Dynamos, Glamorgan Dragons, Middlesex Crusaders, Northants Steelbacks, Nottinghamshire Outlaws, Somerset Sabres, Surrey Lions, Sussex Sharks.

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