County Championship: Essex draw positives at Nottinghamshire

Having been 144 runs behind on first innings, Essex recovered well enough to declare at tea on 362 for eight in their second innings, giving Nottinghamshire 39 overs to chase 219 to win.

In other circumstances, Nottinghamshire might have seen a required rate of 5.6 runs per over as within their compass, yet they were sufficiently respectful of the threat posed by off-spinner Simon Harmer in dry conditions on a fourth-day pitch not to risk defeat in pursuit of victory.

They were 97 for four, still 122 runs short of their theoretical target when the sides agreed to call it a day with five of the scheduled overs unbowled, with Joe Clarke 42 not put, after he and fifth-wicket partner Steven Mullaney survived 10 overs with most of the Essex fielders clustered round the bat. Nottinghamshire take 11 points to Essex’s seven.

Earlier in the day, former England captain Sir Alastair Cook, who has never made a century on this ground, failed tantalising by one run to correct the statistical anomaly in his record, but skipper Tom Westley made 95 and Dan Lawrence added 52 to put Essex in a strong position.

All-rounder Lyndon James was the pick of a Nottinghamshire attack in which Brett Hutton could not bowl due to injury, taking three for 67 including the wicket of Cook. Leg-spinner Calvin Harrison finished with three for 52 on his Championship debut.

After Matt Montgomery’s 177 had enabled Nottinghamshire to be seemingly in control of the game at the halfway stage, Essex batted through two sessions on Saturday for the loss of only one wicket, taking a lead of 55 into the final day with Cook seemingly poised finally to post a three-figure score on this ground for the first time at the age of 38, needing just 13 more runs.

After surviving two difficult chances on Friday, he must have fancied making Nottinghamshire pay for their lapses and having emerged unscathed from a brief joust with former international team-mate Stuart Broad at the start of the day he clipped a ball from James behind square for his 11th boundary, putting him just one hit away from a celebration that no one present would have begrudged him.

But a couple of overs later it was James who was celebrating, having found a gap between Cook’s bat and pad with a delivery that looked to brush a glove on its way through to keeper Joe Clarke, who took a good catch low to his right. Spectators stood to applaud Cook regardless, having seen some moments of England’s greatest Test runscorer at his best.

Broad’s second spell of the morning was always more threatening than his first and it was with a fine ball angled into the body that he denied Westley – the leading runscorer thus far in the Championship – a second hundred of the season, the right-hander successfully defending his stumps but at the cost of an edge that Clarke took comfortably at shin height.

At 258 for three at lunch, 114 ahead, Essex still looked to have the game under control but wickets in consecutive overs midway through the afternoon session offered Nottinghamshire hope that they might yet force the issue, despite being a bowler short with Hutton off the field nursing a tight calf.

First Matt Critchley became a third victim for James, who brought one back sharply to bowl him off what looked like an inside edge for a dogged 20. Then Adam Rossington departed without scoring, handing leg-spinning all-rounder Calvin Harrison a maiden Championship wicket via an easy return catch.

Lawrence, recalled to the England squad for the summer’s opening Test against Ireland next month, completed a 94-ball half-century but when Steven Mullaney relieved James at the pavilion end he was leg before, playing across one, at which point the Essex lead was 175 with 48 overs left to play.

Seven overs and 19 runs later, Doug Bracewell clipped tamely to short midwicket to give Harrison a second success but Shane Snater slog-swept his first two balls for six.

Harrison took revenge by bowling the Zimbabwe-born Netherlands international for 18, but it still came as a surprise that skipper Westley chose to declare at tea rather than bat Nottinghamshire out of the game.

The likelihood of Essex taking 10 wickets in the final session of the contest seemed remote, yet scoring 5.6 runs per over looked a carrot Nottinghamshire might chase.

Yet even though Haseeb Hameed dispatched the last ball of the opening over to the boundary, it quickly became clear Notts were sufficiently wary of Harmer’s ability to exploit last-day pitches to take an approach that was for the most part conservative.

Sam Cook produced a couple of good deliveries to have Hameed caught behind and opening partner Ben Slater bowled before Montgomery was trapped on the crease by a Harmer off-break.

Harmer turned one sharply to bowl James, at which Westley brought on Critchley to bowl leg breaks from the other end, which meant Clarke and Mullaney spent the last 40 minutes or so with most of the Essex fielders crowded around the bat.

Westley said: “I thought Notts played some fantastic cricket, so a draw was a fair result. But at the same time we were a bit disappointed not to have got a few more runs more quickly today, then we might have been able to have a few more overs at them when it was starting to spin.

“We let ourselves down a little bit with the bat in the first innings. We could have got a few more runs. It was good to get 300 after being put in but there were times we needed to build partnerships when it didn’t happen. If we could have reduced their lead a bit on first innings it would have helped us today.

“Sometimes losing the toss and getting 300 is not the end of the world but this was an occasion when it would have been nice to get a few more.

“But we did well to come back and overcome the deficit we had.  Cooky batted brilliantly and so did Dan but it is a shame we couldn’t have got a few more runs quicker and had a few more overs, which would have made Harmy (Simon Harmer) more effective.

“It was one of those where if we had played a bit better cricket in the first half of the game we would have been in a better position in the latter.

“It has been a good cricket wicket throughout the game. You want the majority of wickets to be taken by seam bowlers at the start of the game and the spinners come into it towards the later stages.

“I’ve been a little bit disappointed in general with the way the season has gone for us so far. We’ve played some really good cricket at times but been hampered by the weather.

“Down in Canterbury I think we were in a position where we could have won that game and against Surrey also, where we lost a day to the weather. Apart from the Warwickshire game we have played some pretty good cricket and probably deserved better rewards.”