County Championship: Essex beat Worcestershire by 28 runs

Jamie Porter helped wrap up a nervy first County Championship victory of the season for Essex on the final day against Worcestershire with the 22nd five-wicket haul of his career.

The 31-year-old pace bowler, the leading wicket-taker in Division One last season, added three more wickets to the three he had taken the day before as Worcestershire were bowled out for 266, just 28 runs short of their target. Porter finished with 6-52 from 24.4 overs.

However, the victory was not achieved without some belated anxiety.

All-rounder Ethan Brookes, patience personified earlier in his innings, threw caution to the wind when the ninth wicket went down and launched a one-man pyrotechnic show that included seven sixes in a scintillating 88 from 105 balls before becoming Porter’s final victim.

Both teams arrived on day four believing they could win. Worcestershire needed 110 more runs and Essex required four wickets. They also needed to get it completed before forecast rain arrived during the afternoon.

That Essex had dug themselves out of a hole after being dismissed for 179 in the first innings and were able to set a target of 295 was largely due to Paul Walter’s century, the highest score on a hybrid wicket that was a seamer’s paradise.

To prove that point, Porter extracted some extra bounce from the pitch to claim his fourth wicket of the innings with the second ball of his second over of an overcast morning. Worcestershire had only added a quickly scampered single to their overnight 185-6 when Matthew Waite played on to depart for 27 after a painstaking two-hour stay.

Worcestershire were still 103 runs away from celebrating their own first win of the campaign when Tom Taylor got a thick edge to another Porter lifting delivery and was caught at first slip by Walter.

Kasun Rajitha, replacing Porter in the attack, then knocked out Ben Allison’s leg stump to leave Worcestershire on the precipice.

Once the game was all over bar the shouting, Brookes decided to have some fun, smashing Simon Harmer for six over cow corner and then scooping and sweeping Rajitha for maximums off successive balls. His fourth six, again off Harmer and over Snater’s head on the square-leg boundary, took him to a 73-ball fifty.

Another six, his fifth in five overs, landed in the Tom Pearce Stand at the River End before Porter returned to take the new-ball with Worcestershire still requiring 53 to win.

A sixth six, this one hit back over Snater’s head, brought up the 50 partnership for the last wicket, in 38 balls, of which Jacob Duffy had contributed exactly nought.

Even Porter came in for some treatment when Brookes deposited him over fine leg for his seventh six. But next ball, Brookes lobbed the ball up and Porter rushed in to take a caught-and-bowled right under the batsman’s nose.

Match report supplied by ECB Reporters’ Network.