Essex need one more wicket on final morning after enforcing follow-on
Paul Edwards21-May-2022
In the opening weeks of this season a few people of good judgement appeared to assume Lancashire were going to win the County Championship. This match has offered a powerful corrective to such weirdly confident views. For whatever the vagaries of Manchester’s weather – and the forecast is for rain – Lancashire have been quite outplayed in this game and had Essex managed to take one more wicket this evening, Emirates Old Trafford would resemble the tomorrow. Instead, it is all aboard for a short voyage on the good ship .None of which should obscure the memory of an Essex team that has brimmed with confidence and dynamism these three days. After enforcing the follow-on – the first time Lancashire have suffered this indignity since 2017 – Tom Westley’s bowlers took seven of their opponents’ second-innings wickets and claimed an extra half-hour in the hope of completing their victory today.Tom Bailey and Hasan Ali obligingly holed out in the deep to leave James Anderson defending stoutly against Simon Harmer in the hope that it will hose it down for hours. “I just love this game and I don’t understand it at all,” a member of Lancashire outstanding live-stream operation said.Related
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Harmer, on the other hand, understands cricket’s engaging eccentricities all too well. He knows that it can treat you “dreadful crool”, as Eliza Doolittle might say, and that he has probably deserved more than the six wickets he has bagged from the season’s opening five games. Today, an Old Trafford pitch that offered sufficient help was just what he might have ordered to revive his season and he filled his rather large boots with figures of 5 for 85 from 40 overs.One or two Lancashire batters, notably Dane Vilas, took the attack to the South African Test offspinner but no-one played him with certainty. Vilas, who made 62, perished lbw on the back leg in a chaotic last hour that saw five Lancashire wickets go down. Matt Parkinson and Hasan also succumbed to Harmer’s flight and spin but Anderson and Luke Wood stood firm as the home dressing room hummed with the apocalyptic predictions of amateur meteorologists.And yet, if Lancashire survive, it will be a Dreyfus-esque injustice. For most of the morning – indeed, for most of the game – things have proceeded much Westley might have wished. You will recall that Lancashire resumed, hale and hearty, on 32 for 5. Wood then hit a couple of fours before edging a drive to Adam Rossington off Sam Cook, who also had Bailey lbw in his next over. Hasan survived two balls before edging Shane Snater to Harmer at second slip and Lancashire then needed another 11 runs to avoid posting their lowest total against Essex in the 125 years it has taken the sides to play 161 matches.Their minds uncluttered by such minutiae, Phil Salt and Parkinson put on 43 in 14 overs with Salt pulling Snater into the temporary stand for six. But it was a reflection of Essex’s command in Lancashire’s two innings that losing the ball, either in the building site or the seating, was more or less their greatest inconvenience. Otherwise, events unfolded roughly as they willed them.After making 44 in two hours Salt was leg before to a ball from Matt Critchley that seemed hurry on off the pitch in the manner of a topspinner. Next over, Parkinson smeared Harmer to the sub fielder, Aaron Beard at deepish square leg and Westley opted for traditional orthodoxy rather than the left-field funkiness when it came to enforcing the follow-on. Then again, the humiliation inflicted on opponents by asking them to have another go is probably underestimated. It certainly seems so this evening.
You're a joy to watch, @samcook09.
13 overs, 5 maidens, 18 runs, 4 wickets pic.twitter.com/sUSFZ7Jmfw
— Essex Cricket (@EssexCricket) May 21, 2022