County Championship: Title-chasing Essex beat Kent by seven wickets

Essex are 14 points behind Division One leaders Surrey with four games left

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

It needed Paul Walter to keep his head 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.

However, 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 off-spinner, 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 a 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 4-72 to take his season's tally to 41 wickets and Cook had figures of 4-46.

Report supplied by ECB Reporters' Network.