How the day-night fixtures concluded - and who impressed with the pink ball
Wednesday 12 July 2017 17:09, UK
Nick Compton's first century of the season (120), which came while sharing a stand of 153 with Paul Stirling (55) for the fourth wicket, seemed set to deny Essex a fifth success of the campaign.
However, spinner Harmer removed Stirling and Compton en route to claiming the first eight wickets of the innings and then, after Dan Lawrence snared Toby Roland-Jones lbw, pinned Steve Finn in the same manner in the penultimate over to secure a thrilling innings and 34-run triumph.
Middlesex lost their final five wickets for 10 runs in around half an hour as Harmer, who took 5-77 in the visitors' first knock, recorded match figures of 14-172, having collected 14-128 against Warwickshire last time out.
Second-placed Lancashire - now 29 points behind Essex - and bottom-side Warwickshire were forced to settle for a draw at Edgbaston as rain wiped out the final day, as did Yorkshire and Surrey, with the weather preventing any play at Headingley on days three and four.
However, there was a pulsating climax to the drawn encounter at The Ageas Bowl after Hampshire declared on 96-5 in their second innings to set Somerset a target of 161 in 31 overs for a maiden victory of 2017.
Steven Davies (47 off 40 balls) helped Somerset to 68-3 in the 15th over, but the away side then slumped to 84-8 before Craig Overton (2no) and Josh Davey (4no) saw off the final seven deliveries to ensure a stalemate.
In Division Two, 16-year-old Afghanistan-born spinner Hamidullah Qadri took 5-60 on debut to as Derbyshire beat Glamorgan by 39 runs to earn their first Championship win since July 2015. MORE HERE.
Northamptonshire also earned a two-run victory over Leicestershire during a gripping finish at Wantage Road when No 9 Matthew Pillans, who had played superbly to reach 56, was caught off Rory Kleinveldt.
Leicestershire, for whom Colin Ackermann scored 105 and Mark Cosgrove added 76, looked up against it at 299-7 and 368-9 while chasing 394 for their first Championship triumph of the season.
But Pillans and last man Dieter Klein (7) gave them hope with a partnership of 23, before Josh Cobb, a former Leicestershire player, caught the former off a leading edge at point.
Table toppers Nottinghamshire were thwarted by the rain, however, with a downpour preventing Chris Read's side from taking to the field and attempting to knock off the 75 runs they required to beat Kent.
Sussex and Gloucestershire also drew at Hove, as the visitors, set 351 to win from a possible 75 overs, closed on 212-6 from 72.1 with Jack Taylor unbeaten on 69 following George Hankins' exit for 51.
Harry Finch had earlier creamed 74 from 59 balls as Sussex reached 142 from 18.1 overs before declaring, with Gloucestershire having ended their first innings on 150-1 overnight.
No play was possible at Durham, meanwhile, as the game with Worcestershire ended in a draw.
Who impressed with and against the pink ball?
Harmer, obviously, as he became the first player to take 14 wickets in two consecutive first-class games since Charlie Parker in 1931 and took his season's tally in the Championship to 47 in eight matches, but also Essex's top three of Alastair Cook, Nick Browne and Varun Chopra.
Former England Test captain Cook completed his third Championship ton of the season and 59th first-class century of his career as he and Browne (221) put on an Essex-record 373 for the opening wicket before Chopra (100no) also reached three figures against Middlesex.
There were 14 centurions across the nine fixtures in Division One and Two with Surrey's Kumar Sangakkara becoming the first man to pass 1,000 runs for the season in his sparkling 180 off 183 balls at Headingley, in which he moved from 100 to 150 in just 28 deliveries.
Ben Duckett (Northants) completed the first hundred of the week, an 89-ball effort before lunch on day one against Division Two rivals Leicestershire, with his team-mates, Alex Wakely and Rob Keogh, following suit in the second innings before Ackermann's knock of 105 for the visitors.
Shiv Chanderpaul (Lancs) and Steven Mullaney (Notts) scored tons in Division One, as did Warwickshire's Andrew Umeed, who made the slowest hundred in County Championship history, taking a painstaking 429 minutes to achieve the milestone, nine minutes longer than Northamptonshire's Billy Denton against Derbyshire in 1914.
Brett D'Oliveira (Worcestershire) and Luke Wright (Sussex) also recorded hundreds in the second tier, with Wright's his first in the longer form since 2015.
Mark Wood, who seems likely to play for England in the first Test against South Africa at Lord's from next Thursday, took a five-wicket haul for Durham before Qadri did the same to end Derbyshire's 710-day wait for a County Championship, win while Leicestershire left-armer Klein snared a six-for.
However, those efforts seem small fry compared to what Essex spinner Harmer achieved!
DAY-NIGHT CRICKET - THE VERDICT
Yorkshire coach Andrew Gale: "I can't say I'm a massive fan, to be honest. I think if we're going to go down that (day-night) route, it's got to bring more supporters through the gate and it's hard to know if it worked or not because of the weather. Were there more supporters here on the first day than a normal Championship game? I don't think so. Maybe give it another go next year to see if it works and if it doesn't work, put it to bed."
Lancashire coach Glen Chapple: "I think the lads enjoyed the day-nighter because it was something different. It looks like the pink ball behaved slightly differently to a red ball. It offers some spin and is good to grip for the spinners, but it's early days. This game was a different challenge with the pink ball and the pitch itself was quite slow so it was quite hard work for the batters."
England coach Trevor Bayliss: "I coached New South Wales when they played two day-night games in Adelaide and it was fantastic. The one problem I hear from the players about the ball is that it goes soft early but, like all of these things, we have got to give it a go to see what works and what doesn't."
