County Championship: Essex see off Kent to stay on track

Essex made heavy weather of scoring the 30 runs required to beat Kent by seven wickets and secure their fourth successive LV= Insurance County Championship victory.

It needed Paul Walter to keep his head when others around him were losing theirs and stroke the winning runs, 23 balls into what turned into a more difficult run chase than necessary.

Essex attempted to make light work of reaching the target and were halfway there from the first 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 ground but only skied to mid-on.

Adam Rossington followed in the next over, lbw attempting to reverse sweep Qadri, and first-innings centurion Matt Critchley departed first ball to a caught-and-bowled by the offspinner, taken running back and over his head at mid-on.

That was 23-3 in the third over, but Essex managed to get over the line in the next over to take 21 points and keep up the pressure on Championship leaders Surrey.

Earlier in the morning, Essex needed eight overs before breaking the stubborn overnight partnership, but once Qadri departed to a smart catch at short square leg by Simon Harmer the innings collapsed in just six balls.

Sam Cook added a second of the morning three balls later when Matt Quinn played on and Joey Evison fell lbw to the first ball of Harmer’s 44th over of the innings. Harmer finished with four for 72 to take his season’s tally to 41 wickets and Cook had figures of four for 46.