Essex Men v Durham Men
Rothesay County Championship
Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford
Monday 08 September – Thursday 11 September 2025 | 10:30am start
Team News
Essex: Dean Elgar, Paul Walter, Tom Westley (c), Charlie Allison, Matt Critchley, Michael Pepper (wk), Noah Thain, Simon Harmer, Doug Bracewell, Shane Snater, Jamie Porter.
Durham: Alex Lees (C), Emilio Gay, Ben McKinney, David Bedingham, Colin Ackermann, Ollie Robinson (WK), Graham Clark, Ben Raine, Matt Potts, Callum Parkinson, Sam Conners.
Match Details
Umpires: Ian Blackwell & James Middlebrook
Match Referee: Phil Whitticase
Scorers: Paul Parkinson & Helen Hyde
Toss: Durham won the toss and elected to bat first
Result:
Day Three Reaction: Dean Elgar
Day Three Highlights
Day Three Report
Matthew Potts made a serious claim for a place in England’s tour party for the Ashes this winter with a three-wicket haul for Durham at Chelmsford including the key scalps of Essex centurions Dean Elgar and Matt Critchley.
The 26-year-old pace bowler had been pulled out of next week’s one-day internationals in Ireland by the England management for an up-to-date assessment of his red-ball form with an outing or two in the Rothesay County Championship ahead of the trip Down Under. However, it took him 22 overs of unrelenting toil, and occasional bad luck when his pace beat the bat without reward, before he finally struck to end the 191-run fourth-wicket partnership.
Potts finished a day shorn of 57 overs by rain interruptions with figures of 3-95 from 30 overs.
The obdurate Elgar was at the crease for 98 overs in clocking up 150, his first century of the season, while Critchley’s more flamboyant 129 took just 168 balls. In perfect symmetry, though in great contrast, both batsmen hit 17 fours and one six.
Their stand encompassed 50 overs and underpinned Essex’s 457-8, which gave them a first-innings lead of 124 in the battle between two relegation-threatened teams. But a lull after the departure of both men within 10 balls from Potts meant Essex missed out on a fourth batting point which had looked a certainty at one point.
It had taken Critchley just six balls to move from his overnight 97 into three-figures for the third time his summer. The milestone, from 137 balls, was achieved with a wristy shot to the third-man boundary off Ben Raine. That was followed two balls later with his 14th four, a cover-drive that was both imperious and effortless.
Essex moved into the black 15 minutes into the day’s play when Critchley punished Raine with his fourth boundary in the seamer’s opening two overs, again angling the ball through the vacant third man.
Elgar was content to watch from the other end as Critchley did the bulk of the early scoring but still crept to 150 from 281 balls. Two balls later, though, he got a thick edge to one in Potts’s fourth over of the day and was caught behind. In his next over, Potts had Critchley playing down the wrong line to one that would have hit middle and off.
From a position where the requisite 400 in 110 overs was on the cards, Essex went into the doldrums as the cut-off point loomed. Michael Pepper took 14 balls to get off the mark but fell two balls later when he failed to read an inswinger from Sam Conners and was also lbw. In the end Essex were 29 runs short of the target.
Noah Thain hung around for 60 balls in a 52-run stand with Simon Harmer before he became Potts’s third victim, caught brilliantly at full-stretch by Ben McKinney at slip. However, the arrival of Doug Bracewell belatedly increased the tempo as he twice creamed Potts through the covers for fours and then launched Callum Parkinson for a long, straight six.
Harmer’s demise after a 70-ball 44, playing on to Raine, brought in the injured Shane Snater with runner Charlie Allison. However, the rain returned as they approached the wicket, though they were soon back for another 10-minute burst of action ahead of a serious bout of heavy rain in mid-afternoon sent the players scurrying for shelter for the final time.
Matt Critchley of Essex celebrates his century during Essex vs Durham, Rothesay County Championship Division 1 at The Ambassador Cruise Line Ground on 10th September 2025.
Day Two Reaction: Jamie Porter
Day Two Highlights
Day Two Report
Dean Elgar, batting for more than five-and-a-half hours for a well-paced first century of the season, and Matt Critchley, smashing the ball to all corners of Chelmsford, took Essex within touching distance of a first-innings lead against relegation candidates Durham with an unbeaten fourth-wicket stand of 154.
The left-handed opener Elgar had not strapped on batting pads for five weeks, having spent August back in his native South Africa, but after a scratchy start that echoed his season’s form, he quickly rediscovered the fluency of old with 140 not out from 264 balls. Critchley, meanwhile, has been in decent nick for most of the summer and finished on 97 out of Essex’s 312-3 at the close, a deficit of just 21.
Under heavy cloud cover, the rate of Essex’s steady acceleration through the gears was illustrated by Elgar’s partnerships for the second wicket with Tom Westley (76 in 24 overs), with Charlie Allison for the third (75 in 17) and for the fourth with the freewheeling Critchley.
Durham had been dismissed at the start of the day for 333 with Jamie Porter extending his season’s wickets tally to 39 with figures of 4-77. A punchy ninth-wicket stand of 41 between Graham Clark and Sam Conners took the visitors past 300 and what might prove a valuable second batting point in their fight to avoid dropping into Division Two of the Rothesay County Championship.
When Essex batted, their determination to grind it out initially and establish a stable platform, trundling along at little more than two an over, highlighted by Elgar and Westley taking 17 overs to post their fifty partnership, it looked like becoming a battle of attrition and willpower.
Indeed, the start was so cautious that Essex had just seven on the board by the seventh over when Paul Walter was the first to depart, hanging his bat out against Ben Raine and being snaffled by first slip falling backwards.
Things perked up significantly straight after lunch with a flurry of boundaries to take the run-rate above two-and-a-half. But the pair were parted when Callum Parkinson found some hitherto unsuspected turn and rapped Westley on his back pad to win an lbw decision.
Elgar reached only his third half-century of the season from 107 balls with a single off his legs and then drove Parkinson through the covers for his ninth four. Allison was even more aggressive against the spinner, taking 14 off one over, including a six over the bowler’s head.
Elgar slowly but surely found his rhythm and lofted Parkinson over long leg for six as the third-wicket pair passed fifty inside 10 overs. By that point the run-rate had risen above three an over.
The introduction of Colin Ackermann broke the blossoming partnership, though. The part-time off-spinner pushed one through lower and faster and bowled Allison for 33 from 51 balls. Matt Critchley dented the South African’s figures a couple of overs later with a lofted four and a straight six.
Three balls before tea, Elgar drove Parkinson to the far reaches of extra cover for the three runs that took him to his 53rd first-class century from 169 balls.
Compared to the earlier obduracy, Critchley raced to fifty from just 56 balls with his eighth four, driven straight past Raine, and had scored 65 when the stand passed one hundred in just 25 overs. It continued in much the same vein to stumps.
Doug Bracewell and Porter both added a wicket each to their respective overnight hauls in the 19 minutes it took Essex to wrap up Durham’s first innings in the morning. Conners got a leading edge to give Bracewell a return catch and figures of 3-70 before Porter sent Parkinson’s off-stump cartwheeling out of the ground for a fourth wicket.
Dean Elgar of Essex raises his bat after reaching his century during Essex vs Durham, Rothesay County Championship Division 1 at The Ambassador Cruise Line Ground on 9th September 2025.
Day One Reaction: Tom Huggins
Day One Highlights
Day One Report
Ben McKinney played with textbook orthodoxy and mature assurance in helping Durham to frustrate Essex for much of a sun-kissed day at Chelmsford with the second first-class century of his burgeoning career.
The 20-year-old left-hander, so strong in the V between mid-on and mid-off where a large proportion of his 18 fours and two sixes were caressed, faced 228 balls in compiling an elegant 121 to help Durham to 316-8 at stumps in the battle to avoid relegation from Division One of the Rothesay County Championship against their fellow candidates.
McKinney was joined by captain Alex Lees, who made 94 from 152 balls, in a 134-run second-wicket partnership that looked to have laid firm foundations for a commanding score.
But a new-ball burst from Jamie Porter saw three wickets fall in five balls, starting with McKinney’s departure, in the middle of an evening collapse in which Durham crashed from 240-3 to 291-8 in 22 overs. Porter finished the day with 3-63, backed up by New Zealander Doug Bracewell, who took 2-67 at the start of his second spell with Essex.
Durham’s decision to bat on the green-tinged wicket was justified for a large part of day one. Apart from a bit of nip and spite in the first couple of overs, it became a batsmen’s paradise and Lees and McKinney in particular took full advantage in laying down a solid platform.
Lees lost opening partner Emilio Gay with 55 on the board. Lees had just welcomed Bracewell back to Chelmsford for his second stint by taking 13 from his first five balls. But with delivery No6 Bracewell had Gay flicking the ball off his legs into midwicket’s hands. It was redemption of a kind for Bracewell, who had dropped a regulation chance early on that reprieved Gay in the same spot where the wicket fell.
Lees adopted the anchor role initially as McKinney contributed 35 of the partnership’s first fifty, but only 20 of the second. Though McKinney was outwardly the more aggressive, with two notable firmly-struck straight drives for four off Bracewell and Simon Harmer, it was Lees who clocked marginally the quicker half-century.
Lees reached the milestone when he drove Noah Thain for his eighth boundary from 75 balls. McKinney needed three more balls to pass his fifty for only the second time this season, though he did it with his 11th four, a well-placed drive off Porter through mid-off.
The partnership was finally broken when Lees played down the wrong line to Harmer and was lbw. David Bedingham followed almost instantly, run out to a throw from mid-off by Porter as he looked to get off the mark first ball. McKinney, at the other end, recognised there was no possibility of a run and barely moved a muscle.
Harmer thought he had McKinney on 83 with a sharp caught-and-bowled low down, even throwing the ball to the umpire as he celebrated presumptuously with team-mates. However, the umpires conferred and confirmed the ball had not carried. To rub salt in the wound, McKinney reached three-figures from 156 balls with a four and a six from successive balls off Harmer, both crossing the long-off boundary.
Shane Snater switched ends for the first over after tea and induced Colin Ackermann into an inside edge to the fifth ball to be caught behind. And when Bracewell replaced Snater he had Ollie Robinson strangled down the legside with his third ball.
Essex took the second new-ball after 80 overs and required a third one immediately: the original one lasted just two deliveries after Graham Clark pulled Porter’s loosener over square leg for six and knocked it out of shape.
The change of balls finally paid dividends as Porter struck in short order, ending McKinney’s stay by bowling him, then having Ben Raine trapped lbw before disturbing Matthew Potts’s stumps.
Jamie Porter of Essex celebrates taking the wicket of Ben McKinney during Essex vs Durham, Rothesay County Championship Division 1 at The Ambassador Cruise Line Ground on 8th September 2025.
One Month of the Season Remains: Secure YOUR Tickets for the Run-In!
September boasts a total of seven fixtures, three Men’s and four Women’s with four of the seven right here at the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground.
Let’s finish the season strong, together. Secure your tickets today and be part of the support as we close out the 2025 season.
Tickets are available now via our Ticket Site so don’t miss out!
