Lancashire v Essex
LV= Insurance County Championship
Emirates Old Trafford, Thursday 19 – Sunday 22 May
Team News:
Lancashire: Luke Wells, Keaton Jennings, Josh Bohannon, Steven Croft, Dane Vilas (c), Phil Salt (wk), Luke Wood, Tom Bailey, Hasan Ali, Matt Parkinson, James Anderson.
Essex: Nick Browne, Alastair Cook, Tom Westley (c), Dan Lawrence, Paul Walter, Matt Critchley, Adam Rossington (wk), Simon Harmer, Shane Snater, Sam Cook, Jamie Porter.
Match Details:
Umpires: Steve O’Shaughnessy & Peter Hartley
Match Referee: James Whitaker
Toss: Essex, who elected to bat
Result: Essex won by an innings and 56 runs
Scorecard: View Here
Day Four Match Highlights:
Day Four Match Report:
Essex’s bowlers took just 21 balls to wrap up an innings and 56-run victory over Lancashire on the final morning of the LV= Insurance County Championship match at Emirates Old Trafford.
Needing just one wicket to complete their comprehensive win, Tom Westley’s bowlers achieved their goal in the fourth over of the morning when Luke Wood was caught behind by Adam Rossington off the bowling of Jamie Porter for 27, thus leaving Lancashire 232 all out in their second innings.
In the 13 minutes’ of cricket, Wood hit three boundaries off Sam Cook and Simon Harmer before a good ball outside off stump from Wood induced him to fence fatally. Harmer ended the innings with figures of 5/89 and Sam Cook returned match figures of 6/62.
Essex earned 22 points for the victory and move into the top half of the Division One table, whilst the hosts took two points from the game.
It was a dominant display from Essex, which inflicted Lancashire’s first home defeat since 2018 and their fifth innings defeat this century; the first since they lost to Yorkshire in August 2014.
Day Three Match Highlights:
Day Three Match Report:
The Essex attack led by Sam Cook and Simon Harmer took 14 wickets on the third day of the LV= Insurance County Championship match at Emirates Old Trafford and a second victory of the season is now within touching distance tomorrow.
After dismissing the home side for 103, with Cook taking 4/18, Tom Westley enforced the follow-on with Lancashire 288 runs behind.
Lancashire reached the close of play at 7pm on 213-9 and still needed 75 to make Essex bat again.
Harmer bowled unchanged from the Brian Statham End after lunch and ended the day with 5/85 from 40 overs and Essex were only prevented from completing their victory by James Anderson and Luke Wood, who blocked the last few overs.
Essex began the third morning as successfully as they had ended the second afternoon. Wood hit a couple of fours but was then caught behind by Adam Rossington when attempting to drive Sam Cook; Tom Bailey was leg before to the same bowler for a single; and Hassan Ali lasted two runless balls before being well caught at second slip by Harmer off Shane Snater.
At that point, Lancashire were 60-8 but Phil Salt and Matt Parkinson then moved into a more attacking mode, adding 43 for the ninth wicket before Salt was lbw for 44 to a ball from Matt Critchley that hurried on off the pitch. In the next over, Parkinson pulled Harmer straight to the substitute fielder, Aaron Beard at deep square leg and Westley did not hesitate about enforcing the follow-on, the first time this indignity had been suffered by Lancashire since September 2017.
Lancashire’s openers, Luke Wells and Keaton Jennings negotiated four maidens before lunch but it did not portend a revival by the home side. Jamie Porter bowled Jennings with the eleventh ball after the resumption and two further wickets had fallen by tea.
After resisting for just over an hour, Josh Bohannon was caught off bat and pad for 14 by Nick Browne to give Harmer his eighth wicket of the season. Wells then pulled Cook straight to a tumbling Paul Walter at square leg and departed for 19.
Steven Croft and Dane Vilas then shared a gritty 74-run stand for the fifth wicket but Croft was dismissed by Harmer for 39 midway through the evening session when his top-edged sweep lobbed a catch to Sam Cook, who was positioned 45 degrees behind square on the leg side.
Salt then batted very positively for his 31 runs but was dismissed half an hour before the scheduled close of play when an attempted cut off Critchley only edged a catch to Rossington, meaning that Salt had been dismissed by the leg-spinner twice in a few hours.
Three overs later Vilas’s long duel with Harmer was ended when the Lancashire skipper was lbw on the back leg for 62. Parkinson was then caught at short leg by Browne, also off Harmer, for six and this late fall of wickets prompted the umpires to allow the extra half-hour to be claimed. Essex marked the occasion by taking the new ball.
Lancashire’s rapid decline continued when Bailey’s top-edged pull was caught on the deep square leg boundary by Walter and Hassan was also caught in the deep off Harmer.
Wood and Anderson stood firm to see out the day but it will be Essex looking to make the final blow on Sunday with play resuming at 11am.
Tom Westley said:
“One more wicket would have been nice but if you had offered us that at the start of the day, let alone the game, we would have snapped your hand off. It was a great day for Simon Harmer as well because he’s toiled away this year and hasn’t had much luck. He deserved more than he got, so credit to him and credit to all the bowlers.
“When you have a world-class spinner like Simon, you just let him bowl and he’ll create plenty of chances. On another day he’d have got seven or eight but it was a brilliant effort from the lads after a whole day in the dirt.
“We managed to build partnerships with the bat in the first innings and we’ve been outstanding with the ball in our hands. Sam Cook is one of the best seamers in the country, Jamie Porter has come back to some brilliant form and Shane Snater has gone from strength to strength. Matt Critchley is the second change spinner and he’s not used to that but he’s picked up useful wickets.”
Day Two Match Highlights:
Day Two Match Highlights:
Day Two Match Report:
Essex’s new-ball bowlers, Sam Cook and Jamie Porter, left Lancashire’s first innings in tatters on the second afternoon of this game and the visitors ended a rain-shortened day completely in control of the LV= Insurance County Championship match at Emirates Old Trafford.
Replying to Essex’s 391, in which Dan Lawrence made 120 and Shane Snater 72, the home side were 32-5 and the only solace for home supporters was that the rain prevented any play after Tea.
The morning’s play was also interrupted for over an hour by rain but Essex took the session’s honours by scoring 61 runs in 12 overs, the majority of them coming from the bat of Snater, who completed his third first-class fifty early in the afternoon.
There was, however, bad news for the visitors when Lawrence was forced to use a runner after pulling up when completing a quick single and it appeared to be a similar injury to that which sidelined him for a month before this game.
Three overs later Lawrence was caught by James Anderson off the bowling of Luke Wood for 120 but that was the only success the Lancashire bowlers enjoyed before Snater was leg before to Hassan Ali for an 82-ball 72 nearly an hour into the second session. Porter was run out for nought by Josh Bohannon’s brilliant pick up and direct hit from midwicket but Essex’s score looked a creditable effort and seemed even more so an hour or so later.
Lancashire’s innings could barely have got off to a worse start. Keaton Jennings was lbw for 4 when coming only half-forward to Cook in the fifth over and Bohannon fell for a duck in similar fashion when playing across the line to Porter in the eighth.
Next ball Steven Croft edged the ball low to Alastair Cook’s left but the former England skipper made no mistake with a two-handed catch. Three overs later Luke Wells was leg before to Sam Cook for 6 when playing no shot and Lancashire’s torment was completed when Dane Vilas tried to take the bat away from a ball from Snater but only managed to inside-edge the ball on to his stumps.
That left Lancashire on 24-5 in the 14th over and the only consolation before Tea arrived a few balls later when Phil Salt hit Simon Harmer for the first fours of the innings. Cook currently has figures of 2/5 from 7 overs and Porter 2/19 from 6.
Day One Match Highlights:
Day One Match Report:
Dan Lawrence made exactly 100 not out and Nick Browne returned to form with 71 as Essex shared the spoils with Lancashire on the opening day of their Division One LV= Insurance County Championship match at Emirates Old Trafford.
Lawrence, who was playing his first match after nearly a month out with a hamstring injury, reached his century in the penultimate over of the day but Lancashire took 4 wickets in the final hour or so to leave the Tom Westley’s men 280-7 at the close.
In the first session Browne and Tom Westley enabled Essex to recover after the loss of Alastair Cook for only 2 in the ninth over of the day. The former England Captain was caught behind by Phil Salt when Tom Bailey got a ball to straighten sufficiently to take a thin edge. However, the second-wicket pair coped with Lancashire’s four seamers in relative comfort and the visitors were 74-1 after 30 overs at Lunch.
The scoring rate increased on the resumption with Browne milking Lancashire’s attack for a quartet of fours in the first half-hour and reaching his 50 off 107 balls. The best of the opener’s strokes was a straight drive off Luke Wood but just when Essex seemed about to take the initiative, Westley tried to slog-sweep a ball from Matt Parkinson that was too wide outside the off-stump for the shot and top-edged to Salt.
Undeterred by the loss of his skipper for 30, Browne continued to bat well and the batter’s obduracy prompted Anderson to bowl a succession of bouncers. This tactic hardly unsettled his target but the England seamer still dismissed the opener for 71 in an extraordinary fashion when a firm back-foot drive hit Dane Vilas at silly point, only for the Lancashire Captain to clutch the ball, claim the catch and leave Essex on 134-3.
Lawrence, meanwhile had already played himself in although his task was eased by Parkinson virtually gifting him 8 runs by bowling a couple of short balls outside the leg stump with no protection backward of square. By Tea he was unbeaten on 40 and Essex were 169-3.
The first half of the evening session belonged to Essex as Lawrence and Walter extended their fourth-wicket partnership but the balance of the day changed markedly when Lancashire took the new ball.
In the second over of his final spell, Bailey bowled Walter between bat and pad for 34 and then had Matt Critchley caught behind by Salt for a four-ball 0. From the other end, Anderson was equally as penetrative but wicketless.
The England bowler induced an edge from Lawrence on 71 but the ball flew at catching height between Luke Wells and Keaton Jennings in the slips. He then had a very tough chance off Adam Rossington put down by Steven Croft at fourth slip before the same batter had another let off on 5 when Jennings dropped a more straightforward catch off Anderson.
Lancashire’s attack in the final few overs was entrusted to Wood and Hassan Ali, Lawrence however continued to bat coolly until, on 99, he played the ball to the substitute fielder, George Balderson at mid-off and called Rossington for a tight single.
The non-striker was run out for 21 and after Lawrence had reached three figures off 178 balls, Simon Harmer was caught behind by Salt off a vicious lifter from Wood.
