Report: Essex vs Warwickshire, Rothesay County Championship

Day Four

Ed Barnard completed his third century of the season before rain arrived at Chelmsford to confirm the inevitable draw between Essex and Warwickshire in the Rothesay County Championship.

The match was effectively over as a contest late on the third evening when Ed Barnard struck the boundary that took Warwickshire past their follow-on target of 453, despite having just one wicket in hand. What had become a damp squib was officially called off at 3.25pm.

The 14 points Essex gained kept them just ahead of the relegation places in Division One, while Warwickshire’s dozen points mean they are safely in mid-table.

Barnard, meanwhile, gained reward for his overnight effort the morning after when he was left unbeaten on 108 in Warwickshire’s first-innings 485, 117 behind Essex’s 602-6 declared. The remarkably consistent all-rounder’s 123-ball knock took his season’s tally to 815 runs with three centuries. Matt Critchley’s marathon spell of 40 overs for Essex returned figures of 5-171.

Tom Westley was 51 not out, with seven fours in his 103-ball innings, to follow his 148 first time round. He had put on 86 in 28 overs with Paul Walter for the second wicket before umbrellas went up and the players scampered for shelter. Walter had contributed 35 to a stand that took Essex’s lead to a nominal 213.

With Dean Elgar absent from the field since day one with a calf injury, Essex promoted Noah Thain to open their second innings. But Essex’s faith in the up-and-coming all-rounder was not fulfilled as Ethan Bamber got one to lift off the pitch and take the outside edge with only two against his name.

Westley drove his first ball for four, but was fortunate when he reached 19 that a diving Kai Smith could not cling on to a catch in Beau Webster’s first over.

Westley reached his fifty from 103 balls, clipping Hannon-Dalby past an unusual legside field comprising six fielders in a semi-circle between short mid-on and square leg. It turned out to be the last meaningful action before rain set in at 2.24pm.

Walter had been comparatively subdued at the other end, though he did strike two boundaries in the last over before lunch that brought up the fifty partnership from a leisurely 18 overs.

Barnard, 90 not out overnight, had become the game’s fifth century-maker when he swept Critchley for four from the 114th ball he faced. He had already launched the leg-spinner over midwicket for six during the 23 minutes that Warwickshire’s first innings extended into the fourth morning.

Oliver Hannon-Dalby had kept Barnard company the previous evening when the ninth-wicket pair ensured Warwickshire moved safely beyond the follow-on mark. He remained unfazed for 27 balls in total, 15 in the morning, before Westley introduced his occasional off-breaks and had the No. 11 lbw with his fourth delivery.

Warwickshire captain Alex Davies said: “It was a pretty turgid and attritional pitch, and a draw looked the most likely outcome throughout. We did really well to avoid the follow-on, which meant with the position they are in the table, we’d have liked to try and set something up. With Yorkshire winning, it puts them in a bit of peril. We would have liked to set up a result, which we wouldn’t have been able to do if we hadn’t avoided the follow-on. Ethan Bamber’s knock was incredible, as was Ed Barnard coming in and steadying the ship and the scrap from the lower order, so there are a lot of positives to take from this week … but another slightly boring draw.

“We did start really well with the ball in their second innings, we could have had them three or four down at lunch, but we didn’t take our chances. But basically they didn’t have any interest in setting anything up. I was asking all morning, ‘let’s have a chase tonight’, talking numbers and talking overs, but I think they were really settled with their draw.?

“We were targeting these two games [including last week against Worcestershire], lose those and you come back for the last three in a potential relegation battle. But you get two positive results, and we’re coming back with a sniff at the title. Obviously, we haven’t won this week, which isn’t great, but we play Surrey next and if we take them down, then we’re in with a chance of the title.”

Day Three

Ethan Bamber, nominally batting as nightwatchman, enjoyed the day of his life in recording his maiden first-class century to help Warwickshire narrowly avoid following on in the Rothesay County Championship match at Chelmsford.

Despite Matt Critchley, the main spin option in the absence of Simon Harmer, taking 5-156 from 37 overs, Ed Barnard made sure Warwickshire passed the 453-run target to make Essex bat again with just No. 11 batter Oliver Hannon-Dalby for company.

In the team primarily as an opening bowler, the 26-year-old Bamber had never surpassed the 46 not out he compiled against Surrey two summers ago when with Middlesex. But he was unflustered and correct in defence and attack in remaining at the crease for nearly four hours for his crucial 107 that makes a draw on the fourth day inevitable.

Bamber was not overawed in a 64-run stand for the third wicket with Dan Mousley, who hit 75 from 88 balls, and 80 for the fifth wicket with Beau Webster, whose contribution was 32.

Another player to relish the day was 20-year-old South Asian Cricket Academy graduate Vansh Jani, looking like an old hand and marking his county debut with 41 in an 86-run stand with Barnard, who was 90 not out when bad light ended play at 6.54pm with Warwickshire 465-9.

On a day shorn of seven overs by morning rain, Essex toiled with the Kookaburra ball on a benign track just as Warwickshire had on the first two days in conceding 602-6 declared. 

When play started 40 minutes late, Warwickshire added 29 runs in nine overs before the rain returned. Bamber, promoted up the order after Alex Davies’s late dismissal the previous evening, claimed 22 of those runs, overshadowing Mousley, who had been scoring at a run-a-ball before stumps on day two.

When play resumed after the delay, Mousley increased his day’s output from six runs to 14 in the first over from Porter with back-to-back straight drives for boundaries. As he rediscovered his earlier fluency and strike-rate, Mousley reverse-swept Critchley for another four.

However, the left-hander lasted just two balls after lunch before he slashed wildly at Snater and was caught at first slip by Paul Walter. Next delivery, Zen Malik prodded forward tentatively, the ball caught his outside edge, and he departed to the same bowler-fielder combination.

Two fours in the next over from Snater, one streaky between the slips and gully, the other a firm cover-drive, took Bamber first to his top score and then to fifty.

With confidence now flowing, Bamber pulled and swatted Noah Thain for boundaries before another pull off the same bowler brought up both Warwickshire’s first batting point and the half-century partnership with Webster.

Webster was equally untroubled, going up on his toes to square-cut Snater for four and treating Cook’s first delivery with the second new-ball with disdain as it raced to the extra-cover boundary. However, Cook took his revenge when digging in a short one, which the Australian all-rounder followed and edged at shoulder height to second lip.

Bamber’s first real mis-stroke, a wild lunge outside off-stump for his 18th and final boundary, took him to three figures. But with just seven more runs added, and having faced 207 balls, he got a leading edge and gave a return catch to Critchley.

Kai Smith thrashed his first two balls to the cover boundary, but he clipped his sixth to midwicket, where Charlie Allison plucked the ball out of the air as it passed him to give Snater a third wicket.

That looked like the moment for Essex to take control before Barnard and Jani collected some soft runs in their 20-over, eighth-wicket stand. The rookie all-rounder became Critchley’s fourth wicket when he was lbw playing down the wrong line. Corey Rocchiccioli was Critchley’s fifth when he patted back to the bowler before the late mini-drama as Barnard saw Warwickshire over the line.

Day Two

Dan Mousley led the Warwickshire fightback to Essex’s mammoth first-innings total with an innings that belied the gravity of the situation facing the visitors in the Rothesay County Championship match at Chelmsford.

The imposing left-hander clocked up only his third half-century of the season, but at a rate of more than a run-a-ball. It was in contrast to his more measured captain Alex Davies, who went along at half the rate in a second-innings stand of 86 that pulled Warwickshire back into the game.

Though Davies departed for 52 from 116 balls, stumped by the alert Michael Pepper to give Matt Critchley a second wicket of the innings, Mousley was still there at the end with 54 from 53 balls and Warwickshire 140-2.

It had been a chastening day and a half in the field for Warwickshire after Davies put Essex in as they rattled up 602-5 declared on an unresponsive, green-tinged pitch. Along the way, there were three Essex centurions, curiously all scoring their third three-figure scores of the season. Tom Westley’s 134 was followed by Charlie Allison and Michael Pepper, who combined in a 38-over, sixth-wicket stand of 195, the largest partnership in the innings.

Either side of a mid-afternoon rain break, it was carnage as the pair sensed the impending declaration and went for broke. The declaration duly arrived when Allison departed after four hours, caught at deep midwicket, for 133 from 202 balls with 17 fours and two sixes. That left Pepper unbeaten on 107 from just 117 balls, including 11 fours and two sixes.

It would not have escaped Warwickshire’s notice that Allison was not even in the Essex XI announced at the toss, but was drafted in at short notice, without argument, when Simon Harmer dropped out for “personal reasons”.

Before his partnership with Pepper, Allison also put on 91 for the fifth wicket with Westley. 57 of them in the morning. Westley added 24 to his overnight 124 before he was finally dismissed after a stay of more than six hours, caught at short fine leg turning Beau Webster off his legs. Significantly, the pair had carried Essex to a fourth batting point with four balls to spare.

Westley had laced his 278-ball innings with 17 fours, a large portion of them driven elegantly through the covers. At the other end, Allison followed closely in Westley’s footsteps, punching fours through the off-side. He reached his fifty from 85 balls when he turned the Australian off-spinner for a single.

The incoming Pepper did not hang about. He swept Rocchiccioli for an emphatic boundary to get off the mark and added four more with a late cut off Webster. The wicketkeeper-batsman went to lunch on 33, at which point he was presented with his county cap; little more than quarter-of-an-hour after the restart he had reached his half-century with a tap into the off-side off Rob Yates.

Despite his rate of scoring, Pepper was beaten to his hundred by Allison, who helped a wayward legside delivery from Mousley for his 14th boundary. After a 25-minute rain break, Pepper made it to his century, having taken just two hours and 15 minutes of improvised nudges and paddles.

Essex found the Kookaburra ball just as unhelpful when Warwickshire set out with the initial target of 453 to avoid following on. Yates and Davies made a competent start, passing 50 in 21 overs, Davies hammering Jamie Porter for successive boundaries before Matt Critchley made the breakthrough. Given the rare opportunity to take the main spin-bowling role in Harmer’s absence, Critchley had Yates retreating onto the backfoot and lbw to one that turned and reared up.

Mousley brought Critchley down to earth when he slammed him straight back down the ground for six and reached his fifty from just 46 balls.

Warwickshire head coach Ian Westwood said: “We don’t know if we’re going to get some showers tomorrow. You’ve just got to play the game in front of you. It’s very difficult to make decisions on something that may or may not happen. I suspect Essex wanted to get as much wear and tiredness into us as they could and into the pitch, and that is their strategy.

“We go out there to try and take the scoreboard out of it as much as possible and just back our skills against them and get a good total where we can get some batting points. We’ll look at what comes next later.

“In cricket in general, the danger is always looking too far ahead. I was pleased with the application we showed after two punishing days there. To be close to getting in with that partnership at one down, that is disappointing [to lose that late wicket], but 140-2 after all that time in the field, we’ll take it. We’ve just got to try and build some partnerships tomorrow and see where we can get to.

“The captain just looks at the pitch and decides what to do. I think what they do well here is it’s always a decision [to make] at the toss. It normally offers the seamers something early on and deteriorates and spins later on. If you bat well in the first innings, you are in the game; likewise, if you bowl really well, you can make inroads. We weren’t able to do that, and in hindsigh,t it lookslike a poor decision, but we’ve just got to try and get as many points as we can out of this game as we can

“The players are tired, it’s not just this game, they have put in a helluva effort over the last period of time with these four Kookaburra games and the T20 squeezed in between. They are on their knees, some of them. But there is a lot of determination in that room, and hopefully we’ll show that for the next two days.

“Dan [Mousley] is a really talented boy who’s finding his way. He’s not the finished article yet. He went away recently and scored a couple of hundreds for some England representative teams, which gave him confidence. He carried that into the T20, and it is nice to bring someone of that quality back. Now it is up to him to make the most of the chances he is getting. He has made some good starts, but he will be desperate to kick on in the morning.”

Day One

Tom Westley’s form in the Rothesay County Championship continued as he notched his third century in five innings to frustrate Warwickshire at Chelmsford.

With Paul Walter, who hit 86 from 160 balls, Westley put on 132 for the second wicket and 81 for the third with Jordan Cox. At stumps, Westley was unbeaten on 124 from 234 balls with Essex 350-4.

There was a first career wicket for part-time leg-spinner Zen Malik, who was brought on to eat up an over before the arrival of the second new ball. Malik had Cox attempting to hit his fifth delivery out of the park, but instead the batter ended up on his backside with his stumps akimbo.

Before the start of the play, Essex’s own bowling plans had twice been thrown into disarray in the space of 24 hours. They had already lost one member of their attack when Indian international pace bowler Khaleel Ahmed pulled out of a contract due to run to the end of the season, citing “personal reasons”. Then, less than quarter-of-an-hour before the start of the match, off-spinner Simon Harmer, who had taken part in all the warm-up routines, also withdrew, offering “personal reasons” for his absence.

Those problems were shelved for the time being as Essex were put into bat on a hybrid pitch with plenty of grass left on to help encourage greater carry for the bowlers.

Dean Elgar, overcoming a torrid first over from Oliver Hannon-Dalby, brought up the fifty partnership with an uncharacteristic slash at Beau Webster that cleared the slip cordon. However, he departed soon after to his second rash shot of the innings, pulling the Australian low to midwicket.

On one occasion, Walter, so strong off the backfoot, came down the wicket to waft Corey Rocchinccicioli for six over extra cover and post Essex’s first hundred. He reached his half-century from 79 balls with a well-placed push into the off-side for two.

At the other end, some of Westley’s strokes were exquisite. He produced a classically executed cover drive for four off Ethan Bamber and later essayed a textbook straight drive off Webster. Another off-drive for four by Westley off Webster took the stand with Walter to three figures, of which both batsmen contributed 49. Three balls later, Westley reached a 107-ball fifty.

Westley had just taken Essex past 200 with only one wicket down when, next ball, Walter’s four-hour innings came to an end. He got an outside edge to a delivery from Rocchiccioli, the ball ricocheting off wicketkeeper Kai Smith’s thigh and ballooning up for a diving Alex Davies to claim at slip.

Bamber switched ends straight after tea and immediately extracted some rare bounce and lift that had Westley groping at thin air. Normal service was quickly resumed, though, and soon Westley was angling Ed Barnard to third man for the boundary that took him to his century from 185 balls.

Bamber finally gained some reward late on when he had Matt Critchley swinging and bottom-edging through to the wicketkeeper.

Warwickshire all-rounder Ed Barnard said: “There were lots of factors taken into consideration at the toss: the cloud cover, a bit of rain this morning and there’s quite a bit of grass on the pitch which we thought would assist us. We’re pretty comfortable with the decision made at the toss. They came out and played well and maybe we didn’t hit our straps as we’d have liked this morning, but the lads came out and grafted well all day. Hopefully we can come back in the morning, get a couple of wickets and set ourselves up for the rest of the day.

“We’re probably a bit disappointed with how we bowled in the morning. The conditions were there for us, but perhaps we didn’t hit our lengths as well as we should have, but it wasn’t through lack of trying. The other two sessions were much better.

“It’s a good batting pitch, it usually is here. We’ve seen in games before it gets better and better and our thought at the toss was if it does go four days, there might be in a chase and the pitch is still playing nicely. When it comes to our chance to bat we’ll be hoping we can do something similar [to them].

“That was a brilliant catch [by Zen Malik]. It got us on the board and his first wicket was a nice wicket for him to get. I’m sure over the years it will become a better ball than it actually was! He’s been brilliant ever since he came in and especially off the runs he got last week.

“Beau has been outstanding. He’s been a great addition to the squad. You saw today he is a level above the rest of us there with the ball. He brought the economy rate down and also looked threatening. He’s a great trier and we’re very lucky to have him at the club.

“I think Corey again bowled beautifully. He did a really good job, lots of overs, found a bit of bite at times, though nothing consistent and nothing to worry us when we bat.”