Latest news with #EssexCricket
BBC News
14 hours ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Essex T20 form 'not good enough'
Essex need to start putting some pride into their T20 Blast performances, says captain Simon six-wicket hammering by Middlesex was their fourth successive loss at the start of the campaign and leaves them bottom of the South Group."We need to find ways to win games of cricket and if we're brutally honest we haven't been good enough," said Harmer after the defeat at Chelmsford."Coming off the back of the four-day stuff into the T20s we were probably a bit rusty in the first couple of games but for the last two there are no excuses."Essex opened their campaign with a 106-run loss to Hampshire before eight-wicket and six-wicket defeats by Somerset and Glamorgan respectively."We need to be better in all departments - as a team and an individual you need to find ways to change the momentum and you do that by winning games of cricket, by scoring a hundred, taking wickets," said Harmer."I truly believe we're a lot better than what we're displaying - we could have been smarter how we went about our business (against Middlesex) and we need to start putting up our hands and putting some pride into our performances and into the badge."Essex are next in action at home to Glamorgan on Thursday before a trip to Sussex 24 hours later.
BBC News
25-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Allison hits century as Essex set Surrey huge target
Rothesay County Championship Division One, Kia Oval (day three)Essex 217 & 479: Allison 140, Walter 118, Thain 50, Westley 50; Worrall 4-77 Surrey 279: Curran 70, Clark 54, Rajitha 5-87 & 32-0 Surrey (4 pts) need 386 to beat Essex (3 pts) with 10x wickets standingMatch scorecard Charlie Allison, a 20-year old with a previous first-class best of just 28, hit a memorable maiden hundred to stun champions Surrey at the brilliant 140, in his sixth first-class match, helped Essex rack up a second innings total of 479 and leave Surrey with an unlikely victory target of 418. By stumps, in eight overs' batting, they reached 32 without six-pronged pace attack was neutered on an easing pitch, leaving Rory Burns's side facing a stiff final day battle for a draw to maintain their unbeaten start to the County Championship the end of the innings, Colchester-born Allison hit a weary Dan Worrall for two sixes over long on and there were also 19 fours in a 235-ball epic spanning just over five remarkably, had come in on a pair after being caught behind off New Zealand Test all-rounder Nathan Smith from his fifth ball in Essex's first nine previous first-class innings, since making his debut last month, he had made only 154 runs at an average of when he tucked his 185th ball to deep mid on and sauntered for a single, Allison was coolness personified as he initially hardly reacted to his achievement until removing his helmet and raising both arms in the air to acknowledge generous applause from the third day Thain, his contemporary from Essex age groups and recent England U19 teams, gave Allison a bear hug and the pair then continued an impressive seventh wicket stand that eventually raised made 50 before holing out to long off and, earlier, Allison had helped Tom Westley – who fought hard for his own 50 – to blunt a Surrey attack already up against it after Paul Walter's superlative 118 on day had resumed 133 ahead on 195-2, and Dean Elgar (64) could not believe it when he attempted to square drive a full ball angled across him by Worrall and succeeded only in slicing it all the way to third man where Smith took the was fortunate to get off the mark with an inside-edged four, the ball narrowly missing off stump as he tried to square cut a delivery from Worrall that was too close to him for the the youngster settled his nerves by soon hitting Smith beautifully to the cover boundary, his second scoring shot, and then taking further fours off his pads against Jamie Overton and through extra cover off Tom even touched 88mph in a pacy spell in which he was always in the mid-80s, but Westley was equal to the challenge with fours through extra cover and tucked neatly off his pads. On 35, Westley survived a difficult low chance to Sam Curran, diving to his right, as he clipped Lawes off his legs but the Essex total had moved on to 266-3 by the time Surrey took the second new ball 20 minutes before Clark, nursing a sore toe, was brought on for his first bowl of the day immediately after lunch and, with his 10th ball, he had Westley athletically caught by Kurtis Patterson – diving to his right – at point. Worrall then pinned Matt Critchley leg-before for four, nine runs later, and at 294-5 it seemed as if Surrey were back in the game with almost five sessions Pepper, however, hung around to make 18 in a 49-run stand with Allison, until Curran – finally thrown the ball for the 50th over of the day – struck with his seventh delivery to have Pepper caught Allison and Thain capped a brilliant day for Essex by staying together for almost two hours after Pepper's dismissal 45 minutes before tea. Allison finally miscued a swipe at Clark, giving a simple return catch as the last few Essex wickets fell in a flurry of slogs, but whatever he goes on to achieve in his cricket career he will never forget this Reporters' Network supported by Rothesay
BBC News
12-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Essex hold out for draw against Yorkshire
Rothesay County Championship Division One, Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford (day four)Yorkshire 216 & 426-6 dec: Lyth 185, Bairstow 79, Wharton 61; Thain 3-96Essex 123 & 273-9: Critchley 75, Pepper 68; White 4-32, Hill 3-31 Essex (11 pts) drew with Yorkshire (11 pts) Match scorecard Matt Critchley and Michael Pepper knuckled down for a monumental fifth-wicket stand of 154 in 77 overs to help steer Essex to the unlikeliest of County Championship draws against Yorkshire at pair came together in the depths of despair at 45-4 on the third evening and batted for four-and-a-half hours together, spanning 458 balls, and looked to have made it through two complete sessions on the final day. Pepper, though, fell to the last ball before tea after a 229-ball 68 that included five fours and two followed after the interval for 75 from 246 balls as Yorkshire scented their second win of the season with three wickets in 21 balls. However, last-wicket pair Simon Harmer and Jamie Porter saw out the final 38 minutes and 82 balls to prevent a second successive Hill returned career-best match figures of 9-82, supported by Jack White's season's best 4-43, but to no avail as Yorkshire toiled in vain for one more target of 520, with 456 still nominally required at the start of day four, was always going to be beyond Essex's compass and it became more a case of settling in to save plans for survival, however, were set out from the start as Pepper and Critchley blocked and blocked with little alarm. It was not until the 20th ball of the day that they moved off their overnight 64-4 when Critchley angled a Ben Coad delivery wide of the slips for a boundary. It was only the introduction of Hill after 35 minutes that saw the usually flamboyant Pepper opened his morning's account, turning the ball down to fine leg for a first sign of serious aggression came when Critchley hooked Matty Revis so firmly that the square-leg umpire had to take evasive action as it sped to the boundary. Revis then attempted a short-ball barrage at Pepper which and it nearly came off when the Essex batsman gloved one up and over Jonny Bairstow's head behind the broke out of his self-imposed shackles by sweeping Dom Bess for one six and adding a second over long leg. In between, he survived a difficult chance off an uppish drive past Pepper scampered the single soon after lunch that took him to a 155-ball 50 followed quickly by the century stand that ate up 51 overs. Critchley's 50 was more circumspect, reached with another four guided down to third man from his 190th ball hopes seemed to hinge on the second new-ball, but they failed to make it count immediately and Bess was recalled to the attack after nine fruitless overs. However, to the final ball of the 13th over with it, on the cusp of tea, Pepper was caught leaning into a Hill delivery and departed Thain lasted 15 balls before he was bowled through the gate by Bess and Critchley's marathon innings ended when he got the faintest of tickles to Hill and was caught Snater held out for 32 balls without scoring before he fell lbw to White and Kasun Rajitha's 21 came off 40 balls before he played down the wrong line and was bowled by Dan Moriarty. But then Porter came in to join Harmer and thwart Yorkshire despite being ringed by close Reporters' Network supported by Rothesay
BBC News
10-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Six of the best for Hill as Tykes take charge
Rothesay County Championship Division One, Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford (day two)Yorkshire 216: Wharton 63*, Lyth 58; Critchley 4-49 & 114-1: Lyth 79*Essex 123: Pepper 30; Hill 6-51, Coad 3-20Essex 3 pts, Yorkshire 3 ptsMatch scorecard George Hill produced the second-best bowling figures of his burgeoning first-class career as Essex were routed for 123 before Yorkshire extended their lead to 207 runs at 24-year-old seamer added four wickets for 37 runs on the second day to finish with 6-51 – numbers only eclipsed by his 6-26 in the Roses Match at Old Trafford in 2022 – and 19 wickets in all this season in the Rothesay County Herculean effort, backed up by fellow pace bowler Ben Coad's parsimonious 3-20 from 18 overs, helped Yorkshire establish a first-innings lead of 93, which they increased by 114 for the loss of one wicket in 49 opener Adam Lyth led the way in taking the game away from Essex with an unbeaten 166-ball 79, his fifth score of 50 or more in 10 innings so far this spring.A capricious pitch offered more lift and carry than it had on the first day. Whereas Yorkshire's first innings had been underpinned by five lbws, Essex's was littered with catches to either the wicketkeeper or slip cordon. Hill was the main was also still a wicket that was difficult to score on: Essex managed two an over compared to Yorkshire's 2.5 in their first innings and 2.3 so far in the the day belonged to Hill as he continued where he left off the night before. He already had Robin Das in trouble during the first 25 minutes of the day before he induced a thick edge that flew to third slip and initiated an inexorable Critchley followed to a similar dismissal, dangling his bat at Coad and also ending up in Finlay Bean's hands at third Westley played a captain's innings for more than two hours before he became another victim in a tight opening spell from Coad, who found the faintest of edges from an angled second wicket of the morning marked the end of his opening burst of nine overs with five maidens and 10 runs. At that stage, Hill had 1-27 in the session from his nine 59-6, Michael Pepper and Noah Thain pieced together a minor fightback with a stand of 46 in 17 overs. Neither, though, looked comfortable when spinner Dan Moriarty was introduced into the attack and when Pepper lunged forward to try and negate any turn, he could only nick end was not much longer in coming. Though Thain greeted Hill's recall to arms with a glorious drive through extra cover for his fourth boundary, an attempt at an ambitious and expansive straighter drive at the fifth delivery proved his Snater became Jonny Bairstow's fifth catch behind the stumps when he went to fend off a fuller ball while Kasun Rajitha lasted just three balls before he walked into another Hill delivery and was Lyth and Bean had given Yorkshire what should have been a solid platform in the first innings with an opening stand of 71 before the subsequent collapse to 216 all out. The pair were intent on replicating that partnership, though without any frills or passed fifty for the second time in the match – this time from 106 balls – at which point Bean had contributed just 14 to the effort. With another five runs to his tally, equalling his top score in a season of personal struggle, Bean went to pull Thain and got a leading edge. The partnership had been worth Wharton, unbeaten with a painstaking 63 in the first innings, threw caution to the wind and launched Critchley on to the press box roof and into the river Reporters Network supported by Rothesay
BBC News
10-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
New Essex Cricket Club's war memorial remembers former players
RAF pilots, Army officers and a night-time fire warden are among the players remembered on a cricket club's new war will be unveiled at Essex Cricket Club's Chelmsford ground and lists the names of 16 cricketers who died during both world museum honorary curator David Pracy researched the background of each of the men because he "wanted to bring them alive as individuals". "Some of the chaps were only about 18 years old, and I think of our young players today, the same age, yet those who died never made it to the first XI," he said. Mr Pracy, from the club's official museum, the Peter Edwards Museum & Library, began his research in 2010 and picked it up again during the Covid-19 pandemic. Three of the men died during World War Two and the rest during World War One. They were all volunteers. An England bowler "Ken Farnes (1911 to 1941) was a schoolmaster at Worksop College and used to play cricket in the school holidays - except he had a very understanding headmaster who let him go on three England tours as well," Mr Pracy of a civil servant, he grew up in Romford, part of Essex until 1965, and made his county debut in 1930, playing for Essex 79 times and 15 times for was reputed to be one of the fastest bowlers of the 1930s - alongside the legendary inter-war bowler Harold Larwood, according to Mr Farnes volunteered for the RAF and died on his first unsupervised night-time flight at Chipping Warden, part of Oxfordshire at the Pracy said: "His girlfriend was waiting for him at the airfield and heard the crash - she later said she knew it was him." An all-round sportsman Chartered accountant Claude Ashton (1901 to 1942) not only played for Essex, he was an international Pracy said: "He went to Winchester School, and later he was Cambridge University's cricket captain."Mr Ashton was born in India, but was brought up in Essex. "He also volunteered for the RAF, even though he was in his 40s and probably didn't need to, and was killed in a mid-air collision on a training flight in north Wales," said Mr other pilot was also a cricketer - Roger Winlaw, who played for Cambridge, Bedfordshire and Surrey. The pair were commemorated with a showcase previously used to hold the Ashes. The professional cricketer "Laurie Eastman (1897 to 1941) was his firm's ARP (Air Raid Precautions) warden on one of the worst days of the Blitz, doing night-time fire watch duties, when a bomb went off very close to him," said Mr up in Leyton, also then part of Essex, he had served in World War One, receiving the Military Medal and the Distinguished Service professional cricketer played full-time for Essex from 1926 to 1939, and was "a hard-hitting batsman with lots of decent scores", said Mr club supporter Clement Calnan offered Mr Eastman work as an accounts clerk at his Romford firm during the winter months and the married father-of-two worked for the firm full-time after war broke Pracy said: "He was very badly affected by the bomb blast and taken to a specialist hospital for treatment, where he died during an operation." An Ipswich Town player Doctor's son Roy Pallett (1895 to 1918) had only just left Repton School when he volunteered for Army service on the outbreak of World War One. Mr Pracy said: "He grew up at Earls Colne, near Colchester, and was a very good all-round sportsman, who also played for Ipswich Town FC when it was in the amateur Southern League."He played three second XI matches for Essex and survived nearly four years of war before he was killed on 6 April 1918."The majority of the World War One players listed on the memorial were amateurs and, like Mr Pallett, had been to public [private] schools."The thing is, the young public school boys tended to become junior officers and were often the first ones to be mowed down leading their men," Mr Pracy said. The law student "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said there was 'little doubt' Geoffrey Davies (1892 to 1915) would have developed into an England player," said Mr was from Woodford Green, also once part of Essex, and was "the only one of the 13 who died in World War One to have established a regular place in the first XI". The University of Cambridge law student played in the club's first team during his holidays. Mr Pracy said: "Of the Essex second XI who played at The Oval in August 1914, five of the Essex lads, including Pallett, were killed and two of the Surrey ones."He also discovered two of the World War One casualties were past the age of conscription - Douglas Tosetti, 41, and 46-year-old Frank Street."The more you know about them, the more sad you are - but they were all doing their bit and it's absolutely vital they are remembered," he said. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
