Day 3 Essex v Hampshire - Essex 273 & 178/4 (41.5) win by six wickets.

By Martin Smith at Chelmsford, ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay

Kyle Abbott made history claiming his 500^th first-class wicket for Hampshire as Essex stormed to victory on day three of the Rothesay County Championship.

Abbott becomes the 20^th player to register 500 first-class wickets for the Rose and Crown, joining the established likes of Malcolm Marshall with this achievement.

Essex’s Matt Critchley steered Essex towards their second Rothesay County Championship win of the season by six wickets, with the all-rounder totalling 15 boundaries in an unbeaten 90 from 73 balls at Chelmsford. The 29-year-old led the Essex recovery from 40-3 in a 101-run fourth-wicket stand with Charlie Allison and watched on as Wiaan Mulder lofted a ball from Tom Prest over midwicket for six to complete the victory with just one ball left of day three scheduled to be played.

Hampshire set Essex a target of 177 to win, courtesy of an important innings from Nick Gubbins and skipper Ben Brown. Gubbins kept Essex at bay for three-and-a-half hours to achieve 71, while Brown’s 57 from 89 balls complimented the tally.

Simon Harmer was prolific for Essex, taking his season’s best figures yet of 4-66, while Sam Cook’s 3-52 gave him six wickets in the match. Abbott’s 4-35 in Essex’s second innings saw him reach 22 for the season so far, but it wasn’t enough for the Rose and Crown.

Essex’s chase reached 20 in seven overs, the majority of them to Paul Walter, when the left-handed opened walked down the wicket and wafted hazily at a ball from Abbott and kept walking.

Even on a third-day, fourth-innings pitch, Abbott still extracted considerable life. But not even he can have believed his luck when Dean Elgar choose to inexplicably leave alone a ball that angled in and hit middle and off-stumps.

The South African had already hit Charlie Allison in the chest, causing the batsman to collapse momentarily in a heap, before Tom Westley became a third wicket, whipping the ball off his legs into the hands of short midwicket.

Allison recovered quickly and played the anchor role in the fourth-wicket stand, allowing Critchley to mount a one-man assault on the Hampshire bowling. Abbott had figures of 10-6-16-3 from his first spell either side of tea, but when he returned Critchley thrashed three boundaries through the off-side in his first over.

However, in his next over Abbott struck again, having Allison trapped lbw for 34 from 68 balls. But that was as good as it got for bottom-of-the-table Hampshire.

At the start of the day, Hampshire’s two lefthanders, Gubbins and Jake Lehmann, took their overnight third-wicket stand to 74 with Gubbins the more aggressive, whipping Cook through midwicket to reach fifty for the second time this season. But Lehmann’s run of five successive half-centuries ended in spectacular fashion when he played around a delivery from Jamie Porter which left just leg-stump standing.

Ben Mayes had a short stint for 31 balls before he was too early on to a shorter delivery from Harmer and lobbed the ball back to the bowler. Gubbins followed when he nudged one that turned from Harmer to slip.

Brown and Dawson seemed to adopt a more forthright approach as they hammered Harmer for 14 in the first over after lunch with Dawson depositing one ball over long-on for six. The latter’s contributions were unfortunately short-lived though, as his attempted charge on Cook ended up getting an inside edge to the wicketkeeper.

Brown continued with Fuller and the pair added 46 in 10 overs before Fuller was lbw, misjudging a delivery from Mulder.

That was unfortunately the beginning of the end with the last three wickets falling in nine balls, two of them to Harmer in three deliveries. Scott Currie swept wildly to be caught at square leg over his shoulder by Elgar, Abbott retreated in his crease to be pinned lbw before Harmer was on hand at second slip to take the catch that dismissed Codi Yusuf.

Day 2 Essex v Hampshire - Essex (273) trail Hampshire (235 & 58-2) by 20 runs

By Martin Smith at Chelmsford, ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay

Simon Harmer was the architect of a remarkable last-wicket partnership with Jamie Porter that eked out an unlikely first-innings lead for Essex in the Rothesay County Championship against Hampshire at Chelmsford.

The pair reprised their 10th-wicket heroics that salvaged an equally surreal draw against Yorkshire last season by putting on 81 runs in 21 overs to establish a 38-run advantage. Coming together at a perilous 192-9, 43 runs adrift, Harmer and Porter ended up just three runs short of a 96-year-old club-record stand for the last wicket against Hampshire.

All-rounder Harmer, with 80 not out from 118 balls, managed to farm the bowling so expertly that Porter, an archetypal No. 11, only faced 38 balls for his dozen runs as they were repeatedly able to take a single from the fifth ball of each over.

They were finally parted after the largest stand of the innings when James Fuller returned to knock over Porter’s middle stump and claim his ninth career five-wicket haul. Wiaan Mulder had earlier scored his first half-century for Essex while passing 10,000 runs in professional cricket. In 28 overs in the evening, Hampshire crept back into the black, thanks principally to Nick Gubbins’s watchful unbeaten 35, as they closed on 58-2, 20 runs in front.

However, in doing so the bottom-of-the-table club lost early wickets to underline their hapless start to the season, Toby Albert was dismissed with the deficit still 25 when he edged Sam Cook behind after scoring just a single from 21 deliveries. Tom Prest fell soon after to the same bowler-wicketkeeper combination, also for one.

On a more positive note, Fuller had stuck twice in his first two overs of the morning to add to his overnight wicket of Dean Elgar. Cook’s nightwatchman shift lasted just four more balls before Fuller beat him for pace and sent his off-stump cartwheeling. Without addition to the score, Fuller induced a faint tickle from Charlie Allison.

And just when Tom Westley was beginning to look settled after a thorough opening examination by Kyle Abbott, the Essex captain played a loose shot to Scott Currie and was snaffled by first slip.

Matt Critchley and Mulder put on 46 for the sixth wicket as they attempted to drag Essex back into the game that looked to be slipping away. But Abbott, who was enjoying occasional lift and bounce, got one to keep low and hit Critchley on his back pad for an lbw decision.

And just when Mulder seemed to be forming a fruitful alliance with Michael Pepper both batsmen fell in the space of eight balls. Pepper fished outside off-stump to Currie and Mulder’s near two-hour vigil for 54 runs ended when he followed one from Liam Dawson down legside.

At 157-8, Harmer and Shane Snater decided attack was the best option in the circumstances. Both went after Dawson with Snater hitting a four and a six over long leg from successive balls and Harmer twice finding the midwicket fence in an over.

The pair might have been parted when Harmer, on 13, was dropped at second slip by Jake Lehmann off Abbott. It was to prove costly.

The ninth-wicket stand was worth 35 before Snater was strangled down legside by Fuller, though the batsman appeared unconvinced he had touched it.

It looked like Westley’s decision to bowl first on a green-tinged wicket was going to unravel. Harmer and Porter had other ideas. Refusing singles from the first four balls, and only scoring when Harmer managed to pierce a field scattered around the boundary, they kept Hampshire in the field for two-and-three-quarter hours in an elongated afternoon session.

With almost perfect symmetry, Harmer’s second half-century of the season – both against Hampshire – reached when he turned Codi Yusuf off his hip to fine leg, also took Essex ahead.

Day 1 Essex v Hampshire - Essex (51-2) trail Hampshire (235) by 184 runs

By Martin Smith at Chelmsford, ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay

The half-centuries racked up diligently by Jake Lehmann and Ben Brown stood out like beacons amid a sea of single digits on the scorecard as Hampshire’s season continued to implode.

Lehmann, despite only just returning from a dash home to Australia for unspecified personal reasons, recorded his fifth successive Rothesay County Championship fifty to reach 425 runs from seven innings this summer. His 105-run fifth-wicket stand with captain Brown was the only one of real substance as bottom-of-the-table Hampshire subsided to 235 all out.

Lehmann managed to hang around for 164 balls in compiling 89, while Brown’s 73 came from 116 balls. Otherwise, 18-year-old Ben Mayes’s 20 was the only other contribution in double figures as Hampshire batsmen found nefarious ways of getting out.

England prospective candidate Sam Cook took a trio of top-order wickets to finish with 3-56 before Wiaan Mulder wrapped up the tail with post-tea figures of 3-12 as the final five wickets fell in just 37 balls. In 22 overs in the evening, Essex reduced the deficit by 51 for the loss of Paul Walter, caught behind dangling his bat out to Kyle Abbott, and Dean Elgar, tucked up by a short-pitched delivery from James Fuller and dollying up a catch.

Essex’s decision to put Hampshire in on a green-top was quickly vindicated as Cook struck twice in five balls as early as the sixth over. Toby Albert was too late on to a ball that would have hit off-stump, departing lbw, and Tom Prest lost his off-stump to one that jagged back.

Nick Gubbins had tried to play a holding role, but after scratching his way to eight from 28 balls his exaggerated forward lunge only succeeded in depositing the delivery from Shane Snater into the hands of a diving gully.

Lehmann and Ben Mayes steadied the ship in a 55-run stand for the fourth wicket, with neither looking discomfited until the 18-year-old Mayes fell to the last delivery before lunch, taken low down at second slip for Cook’s third wicket.

But if the morning session was Essex’s, the afternoon definitely belonged to Hampshire. Lehmann reached his latest half-century after the interval with an eighth boundary, pulling Simon Harmer through midwicket. And in Brown he found a pugnacious foil as the pair exchanged boundaries to wrest the initiative away from the home side. The Hampshire captain even charged down the pitch to loft Harmer for six over long leg.

With his two-eyed stance reminiscent of the Indian Farokh Engineer in the 1970s, Lehmann picked off the Essex bowlers with ease. Almost nonchalantly he cut Wiaan Mulder for four and next instant despatched the ball backward of square for another boundary, on both occasions not even bothering to set off for a run.

However, Brown had just brought up the century partnership in an hour and a half when Jamie Porter finally found a way past Lehmann’s imposing pads to knock off the bails. In all he hit 15 fours.

Straight after tea, an out-of-form Liam Dawson became Mulder’s first wicket since his own brief return to South Africa for personal reasons when he pegged back middle stump. And two balls after launching Harmer for six over midwicket, Fuller followed with a loose drive straight back to the bowler.

The pendulum continued to swing back Essex’s way. Scott Currie lasted two balls before he played a ball into the covers, hesitated fatally as Charlie Allison swooped and was run out by a distance as he tried to beat the throw to Mulder at the non-striker’s end. Mulder induced a leading edge from Brown to end an innings containing nine fours and a six, and then had a hand in a fourth wicket when he wrapped up the innings by trapping Codi Yusuf lbw.