Pears battle back well from 10-4 against Essex
Worcestershire captain Brett D'Oliveira made it half-centuries in successive matches
- Published
VItality County Championship Division One, Cloud County Ground, Chelmsford (day one)
Worcestershire 266: D'Oliveira 66, Taylor 62*; Porter 5-52
Essex 50-1: Elgar 29, Das 21*
Essex (3 pts) trail Worcestershire (1 pt) by 216 runs
Essex fast bowler Jamie Porter blitzed a hole in the Worcestershire top order to return his second County Championship five-wicket haul of the season before the Pears rallied well on day one.
After Worcestershire had elected to bat, Porter and Sam Cook shared four wickets in the space of 13 balls as Essex reduced Worcestershire to 10-4 inside five overs.
But, as the Kookaburra ball lost its initial hardness, Pears captain Brett D’Oliveira sparked the Worcestershire recovery.
He hit a patient 136-ball 68, his second half-century in successive matches after returning from injury to inspire last week's win over Kent.
From 46-5, he shared important stands of 72 with Ethan Brookes (46), then a further 59 with Tom Taylor.
Taylor, who went on to make 62 not out, was then aided by on-loan Surrey spinner Amar Virdi, who contributed 42 to a last-wicket stand of 64.
Porter, the joint leading wicket-taker in Division One, finished with 5-52 from 17 overs as the Pears were finally bowled out for 266.
On a flat Chelmsford pitch that later played to the strengths of Simon Harmer, the South Africa off-spinner marked his 100th red-ball appearance for Essex with a trio of lower-order victims for figures of 3-103 - to take his tally for the county to 459 first-class wickets.
Essex then knocked off 50 of the deficit for the loss of opener former South Africa Test opener Dean Elgar in 19 evening overs.
Essex lost Elgar lbw to Taylor for 29 to the last ball before the close, until which Robin Das had been largely untroubled.
The hosts will have Jordan Cox available to bat on Friday after he was released by England once the team had been confirmed following the toss at Lord’s.
Noah Thain had been named in the initial Essex starting line-up, in case Cox was retained.
Report supplied by ECB Reporters' Network.
