Party time in Essex
to go unbeaten this season, but we’re going to celebrate first.
“Eight wins should be enough though we will, of course, wait for the official confirmation.”
That confirmation will come if and when Lancashire lose at Somerset and, as the Essex skipper suggested, even if they pull off an improbable victory.
With a lead of just 45 and only two second-innings wickets in hand, that would appear unlikely. It would be no reflection of a season’s work either, as Essex have not so much won this Championship, just 12 months after coming up from the second division, as romped it.
The exact moment when ambition upscaled from survival to contenders is hard to pinpoint but the start of a sequence of five games unbeaten either side of the domestic T20 season in June and August certainly provided vertical shift.
The presence of Alastair Cook in their batting ranks provided a similar early-season boost too. But there were half a dozen men who posted more than 500 runs and nine players who weighed in with centuries. For all those runs, it has been the bowlers who have really dragged them over the line this summer and the pair who have put their shoulder to the yoke more than any others were Jamie Porter and Harmer.
Porter, 24, passed 50 wickets two years running in the second division but has handled the step up to the top-flight with impressive ease, leading the wicket charts with 64 – one more than Harmer.
Porter and Sam Cook, 20, were excellent with the new ball yesterday morning as Warwickshire started a day which ended with them all out for 112.
The former finished with 3-37 in the second innings and 7-101 in the match. Cook took 3-42. Harmer eclipsed them both with 4-25 yesterday and 8-72 in the match.
Coach Chris Silverwood was quick to praise the contribution of Cook, who has been on the sidelines cheering on Essex at Edgbaston.
“There is the weight of runs that Cookie brings to the team, which is fantastic, but equally it’s about him as a character,” he said. “He probably doesn’t realise what an influence he is in that dressing room.”