Archer’s incisions give Essex reason to grumble

Essex 337 for 6 (ten Doeschate 83, Lawrence 65, Archer 3-74) v SussexScorecard

There was, at Colchester’s idyllic Castle Park, plenty of grumbling early on Thursday. The car park queue took forever, they said; the stand from last year was gone (on grounds of cost), and there weren’t enough seats. The beer? Well, that was £4 for a can. And where the hell was Ravi? (Mr Bopara sat the game out due to illness).

What’s more, the trees at the Trevor Bailey Drive End had been chopped down, with a pair of moanable results: not only had the ground’s perfect circus of foliage been interrupted, but the gap had left the natty new-builds beyond naked. The most generous said things were not what they once were, the more damning suggested – with a game fewer from next season – that this was another festival on its last legs.

Not everything in Essex these days, though, gives quite such reason to lament. Each of the next two weeks bring a white-ball quarter-final, and they sit atop Division Two of the Championship. If their interest in Alex Hales revealed a club bristling with ambition, then the return of Varun Chopra proved that, under Ronnie Irani and Chris Silverwood, they have the pull to attract high-quality players – a Championship-winning captain, indeed.

Essex are yet to win a game that Alastair Cook has not played in, but they possess depth. Not only are they missing Bopara, but Jesse Ryder – who appears unlikely to be at the club next season – and Matt Quinn, who felt sore in the warm-up and was not risked with those quarter-finals in mind.

Despite some quality pace bowling from Jofra Archer, on Championship debut, that depth was on display here, even if they never quite pulled away as they had …

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