Essex earn point from rain-hit Metro Bank One-Day Cup opener

A wet outfield prevented play beginning until 1pm but Lancashire’s batsmen prospered against an inexperienced visiting attack, making 270 for seven off their allotted overs.

Dane Vilas made 65, his best score of the season in first-team cricket, and Essex were 23 for two when drizzle forced the players off the field. The game was finally called off at 5.40pm.

The early end was tough on Lancashire, whose openers, Keaton Jennings and George Bell made a bright start, putting on 25 inside four overs.

But having taken three successive fours off Aaron Beard, Jennings nicked the same bowler to slip, where Essex’s Australian debutant, Beau Webster, took the catch to remove the Lancashire captain for 19.

Josh Bohannon and Bell then added 72 at a healthy clip in 13 overs before both were dismissed in the space of six balls. First Bohannon, having made 35 off 42 balls was caught at backward point by Robin Das when cutting Aron Nijjar’s slow left-arm and in the next over, Bell was plumb lbw to Webster for 29.

But those reverses only sparked further Lancastrian acceleration as Vilas and George Balderson put on 70 in 9.1 overs, a partnership that was only ended when Beard deflected a fierce drive from Vilas into the bowler’s end stumps to run out Balderson for 32.

Nothing, however, could prevent the home side towards the end of their innings. Vilas reached his fifty before being caught at deep midwicket by Ben Allison off Webster for 65 and both the debutants, Matthew Hurst and Tom Aspinwall, acquitted themselves well.

Hurst ended the innings unbeaten on 21 and Sedbergh old boy Aspinwall included three colossal sixes in his 10-ball 22 as Lancashire finished with a formidable total on the board.

Webster was the most successful Essex bowler with three for 59 from seven overs and Nijjar took two for 35 from five. Jamie Porter, who opened the bowling, operated from the Powell End without a break and took nought for 26.

Essex’s pursuit of 271 looked tough when they lost both openers inside the first five overs. Josh Rymell was well caught at long leg by a diving Balderson off Jack Blatherwick for six and Das fell to a comparably fine catch by Aspinwall inches inside the midwicket boundary off Will Williams for eight.

At that point, though, fine drizzle began and only got heavier. The umpires’ decision to call the game off was inevitable.