Essex skittle Bears for 78 as 19 wickets tumble
Shane Snater's first five-wicket haul in two years took his season's haul to 39
- Published
Vitality County Championship Division One, Edgbaston (day one)
Warwickshire 78: Rhodes 29; Snater 5-13, Porter 3-15, Cook 2-31
Essex 189-9: Pepper 37; Barnard 3-36, Miles 3-53
Essex (3 pts) lead Warwickshire (3 pts) by 111 runs
Shane Snater led Essex's dominance with the ball at Edgbaston as Warwickshire were bowled out for 78 - their lowest County Championship score of the season.
On a day when 19 wickets fell in Birmingham, Essex then overcame an early stumble of their own when they slumped to 50-5 before five different players got into their 30s as they recovered to reach 189-9 before a controversially early close.
With still 10 overs left to be bowled on a gorgeous Birmingham evening, despite putting the lights in a bid to help alleviate the problem, the shadow caused by the bigger stands at the Pershore Road/Edgbaston Road corner of the ground made it too dark - and umpires Graham Lloyd and Neil Pratt took the players off.
By then, batting was looking far easier than it had earlier in the day as the Bears, having been put in, stumbled to 72-7 at lunch.
Jamie Porter and Olly Hannon-Dalby started the day as the country’s joint leading wicket-takers on 46.
And Porter took just 16 balls to move to 48 in removing Warwickshire openers Rob Yates lbw and Alex Davies caught at third slip before Sam Hain was trapped lbw by Sam Cook leaving the Bears 18-3.
Snater then struck twice in seven balls as he removed Hamza Shaikh’s off stump and had Ed Barnard leg before.
Former skipper Will Rhodes, on his last home appearance before joining Durham, and still needing 46 runs to reach 1,000 runs in a season for the first time, made 29 before edging Snater to wicketkeeper Michael Pepper.
Cook then knocked out Michael Burgess’s middle stump with the last ball of the morning session.
The last three Essex wickets went in 16 balls as Snater completed his first five-fer since 2022, while Porter's 3-15 leaves him on 49 scalps for the summer.
Essex quickly lost Robin Das lbw to Hannon-Dalby, who also accounted for skipper Tom Westley the same way for 30, before Barnard's two wickets in three balls - Dean Elgar caught at first slip and Paul Walter playing on.
Noah Thain edged to second slip off the luckless Chris Rushworth, who had to go off with what looked like a hamstring injury. But Matt Critchley (32) added 55 with Pepper (37) in 18 overs before Simon Harmer and Snater added another 39.
Craig Miles removed Harmer (31) and Cook in the space of three balls but Snater is still there on 33, having been joined by last man Porter, to help take the lead to 111.
