Essex v Warwickshire
Rothesay County Championship
Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford
Tuesday 29 July – 01 August 2025 | 11am start
Team News
Essex: Dean Elgar, Paul Walter, Tom Westley (c), Jordan Cox, Matt Critchley, Charlie Allison, Michael Pepper (wk), Noah Thain, Shane Snater, Sam Cook, Jamie Porter.
Hampshire: Rob Yates, Alex Davies (c), Dan Mousley, Beau Wesbter, Ed Barnard, Kai Smith (wk), Zen Malik, Vansh Jani, Corey Rocchiccioli, Ethan Bamber, Olly Hannon-Dalby.
Match Details
Umpires: Ian Blackwell & Tom Lungley
Match Referee: Wayne Noon
Scorers: Paul Parkinson & Mel Smith
Toss: Warwickshire won the toss and elected to bowl first
Result: Match Drawn
Day Four Reaction: Tom Westley
Day Four Highlights
Day Four Report
Tom Westley passed fifty for the fifth time in eight Rothesay County Championship innings before rain arrived at Chelmsford to confirm the inevitable draw between Essex and Warwickshire.
The rejuvenated Essex Captain was 51 not out, with seven fours in his 103-ball innings, following his first-innings score of 148. He shared an 86-run stand in 28 overs with Paul Walter for the second wicket before umbrellas went up and the players dashed for cover. Walter contributed 35 as Essex’s lead extended to a nominal 213.
The match had effectively ended as a contest late on the third evening when Ed Barnard struck the boundary that took Warwickshire past the follow-on target of 453, despite having just one wicket remaining. What had become a damp squib was officially abandoned at 3:25pm.
Essex take 14 points to stay clear of the relegation zone in Division One, while Warwickshire’s 12 points secured their mid-table position.
Barnard was rewarded for his overnight effort when he finished unbeaten on 108 in Warwickshire’s first-innings 485, trailing Essex’s 602-6 declared by 117 runs. The ever-reliable all-rounder’s 123-ball knock took his season total to 815 runs, including three centuries. Matt Critchley’s marathon 40-over spell returned 5-171.
With Dean Elgar absent since day one due to a calf injury, Essex promoted Noah Thain to open the second innings. However, the promising all-rounder managed only two before Ethan Bamber found extra bounce and took the outside edge.
Westley drove his first ball for four and was later fortunate on 19 when Kai Smith couldn’t hold a sharp diving chance off Beau Webster’s bowling. He brought up his fifty from 103 balls, flicking Hannon-Dalby past an unusual leg-side field featuring six fielders in a semi-circle from short mid-on to square leg. It turned out to be the final meaningful act before rain set in at 2:24pm.
Walter had played a quieter role at the other end but struck two boundaries in the final over before lunch, bringing up the fifty partnership at a measured pace over 18 overs.
Earlier in the day, Barnard, 90 not out overnight, became the fifth century-maker of the match when he swept Critchley for four—his 114th delivery. He had also launched the leg-spinner over midwicket for six during the brief 23-minute extension of Warwickshire’s first innings into the fourth morning.
Oliver Hannon-Dalby had supported Barnard during their crucial ninth-wicket stand that saw Warwickshire safely past the follow-on. He defended resolutely for 27 balls—15 of them in the morning—before Westley brought himself on and claimed the final wicket lbw with his fourth delivery.
Day Three Reaction: Matt Critchley
Day Three Highlights
Day Three Report
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 past the 453-run target to make Essex bat again with just No11 batsman 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 a 86-run stand with Barnard, who was 90 not out when bad luck 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 distain 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 past 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 No5 when he patted back to the bowler before the late mini-drama as Barnard saw Warwickshire over the line.
Day Two Reaction: Charlie Allison
Day Two Highlights
Day Two Report
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 Essex 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 an innings of large partnerships.
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, though also comfortable enough to reverse-sweep Corey Rocchiccioli for four. 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. Two balls later he celebrated by driving Yates straight for six. Not long afterwards Warwickshire were put out of their misery.
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 on to 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.
Day One Reaction: Tom Huggins
Day One Highlights
Day One Report
Tom Westley’s superb form in the Rothesay County Championship continued as the Essex Captain struck his third century in five innings to frustrate Warwickshire at Chelmsford. His unbeaten 124 from 234 balls, full of elegant stroke-play, also saw him pass 14,000 career red-ball runs and helped Essex close on 350-4.
Westley shared a 132-run partnership for the second wicket with Paul Walter, who made a composed 86 from 160 balls, including two sixes and nine fours. Walter also added 81 with Jordan Cox for the third wicket, helping Essex build on the momentum from the recent win at Hove – only their second Championship victory of the season – which lifted them out of the relegation zone.
Walter, recording his fifth 50+ score of the campaign, was particularly aggressive against Australian off-spinner Corey Rocchiccioli, launching him for six over extra cover and another over long-on. He reached his half-century from 79 balls and helped bring up Essex’s first hundred with a powerful six.
Westley, meanwhile, was at his fluent best, timing the ball superbly. A cover drive off Ethan Bamber and a straight drive off Beau Webster were among the highlights. His half-century came from 107 balls and he later reached his century with a boundary angled down to third man off Ed Barnard.
Warwickshire’s day was summed up by an unusual moment – part-time leg-spinner Zen Malik claiming his maiden first-class wicket. Introduced to use up an over before the second new ball, Malik deceived Cox, who lost his footing attempting a big shot and was bowled in unorthodox fashion.
Earlier, Essex’s preparations had been disrupted. Khaleel Ahmed withdrew from his contract for personal reasons, and Simon Harmer also pulled out minutes before the start, citing the same. Nevertheless, Essex made the most of being put in on a hybrid pitch, compiling 68 runs without loss in 19 overs.
Dean Elgar weathered a tough opening spell to share a 50-run stand with Paul Walter but was dismissed for 27 after slashing Beau Webster to midwicket. Later, Walter fell for 86, edging Rocchiccioli to slip via the wicketkeeper’s thigh.
Bamber found some late bounce and had Westley briefly troubled after tea, but the Essex skipper soon regained control. Bamber eventually earned a reward when he had Matt Critchley caught behind off a bottom edge late in the day.
