CHELMSFORD (third day of four): Essex, with six second-innings wickets in hand, are 65 runs behind Worcestershire
SOME days you are the dog, other days you are the lamppost. Zaheer Khan, who had gone to bed with his tail wagging on Thursday, having nine Essex wickets to his name, couldn’t claim a full set yesterday. Essex’s last pair frustrated him, batting as if it was a Twenty20 match by hitting the India bowler for 73 runs off 33 balls. Astonishingly, those figures included a maiden over.
Gough joined Ravi Bopara with Essex on 186 for nine and three balls remaining from Zaheer’s over the night before. Three no-balls and two fours later, Essex had secured at least one batting point by reaching 200 and when Steven Davies dropped Gough off Zaheer in the next over, you suspected it would not be his day. Zaheer may even have been relieved when Gough, having reached 50 off 32 balls, ended the punishment by edging a ball from Matt Mason to first slip.
Bopara was left not out on 67 and the young batsman was the star when Essex followed on, too. The home side were 53 for three but Bopara, who was dropped by Graeme Hick on 20, made 127 before falling to a slower ball from Roger Sillence. He added 204 for the fourth wicket with Ronnie Irani as Essex delayed what had seemed an inevitable defeat.
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It was a good way to end a batting slump. Bopara last made a championship fifty on April 26, but he reached his second in a day yesterday with a superb straight drive off Mason for four. It was one of his favourite shots: driving the ball several times so straight that it almost kissed the stumps at the non-striker’s end on the way past. The straightest, however, soared high above the umpire’s head for a six off Gareth Batty. Bopara advanced to his hundred with a drive to mid-wicket for two, reaching the mark off 173 balls.
Irani was no less impressive in his innings of 92 not out, smacking the ball through the covers repeatedly to make up for his first-innings duck, but he will have to do a bit more today if Essex are to steal a draw - or even win - after conceding 650 in the first innings.