Essex full madcap sprint to victory after Sam Cook and Harmer clear up

Essex 458 for 8 dec (Critchley 117, A Cook 87, Harmer 83*, Arshdeep 3-58) and 30 for 3 beat Kent 207 (Compton 47, S Cook 3-19) and 280 (Finch 114, Evison 58, S Cook 4-46, Harmer 4-72) by seven wickets

Essex made heavy climate of scoring the 30 runs required to beat Kent by seven wickets and safe their fourth successive LV= Insurance County Championship victory. It wanted Paul Walter to maintain his head when others round him had been shedding theirs and stroke the profitable runs 23 balls into what changed into a harder run chase than vital.

Essex tried to make mild work of reaching the goal and had been midway there from the primary over bowled by Hamid Qadri. But that was the prelude to the drama. Dan Lawrence was first to go when he tried to hit Grant Stewart’s first ball out of the bottom however solely skied to mid-on.

Adam Rossington adopted within the subsequent over, lbw trying to reverse sweep Qadri, and first-innings centurion Matt Critchley departed first ball to a caught-and-bowled by the offspinner, taken working again and over his head at mid-on. That was 23 for 3 within the third over, however Essex managed to recover from the road within the subsequent over to take 21 factors and sustain the stress on Championship leaders Surrey.

With the specter of rain round later within the day, Essex wanted eight overs earlier than breaking the cussed in a single day partnership. But as soon as Qadri departed to a sensible catch at quick sq. leg by Simon Harmer the innings collapsed in simply six balls.

Sam Cook added a second of the morning three balls later when Matt Quinn performed on and Joey Evison fell lbw to the primary ball of Harmer’s forty fourth over of the innings. Harmer completed with 4 for 72 to take his season’s tally to 41 wickets and Cook had figures of 4 for 46.