County Championship: Essex bowl out Northamptonshire for 45 to clinch Division Two title | Cricket News
2 min read
Essex beat Northamptonshire by an innings and 44 runs early on day two to win County Championship Division Two; Northants bowled out for 45 after making just 81 in their first innings; Essex seamer Sam Cook ends with match figures of 10-41 as side clinch fifth red-ball title in six years
Last Updated: 22/09/21 12:47pm
Sam Cook took 10 wickets in the match for Division Two champions Essex
Essex secured the LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two title after rolling Northamptonshire for 45 en route to an innings-and-44-run victory inside four sessions at Chelmsford.
Essex required only four points from the match to guarantee top spot in the table but ended up with 19 after razing Northants for 81 in 34.5 overs in the first innings and then flattening the visitors in 18.2 overs second time around.
The Division Two crown is Essex’s fifth-red ball title in the last six years to go with two County Championships (2017 and 2019), the Bob Willis Trophy (2020) and another Division Two title (2016).
The home side needed just five wickets heading into the second day with Northants resuming on 23-5 and trailing by 66, and Essex – bowled out for 170 on a 25-wicket day one – required just 30 minutes to complete a third innings win in four divisional matches.
Shane Snater (4-7) dismissed Saif Zaib (0), Adam Rossington (4), Josh Cobb (0) and Tom Taylor (8) before Sam Cook clinched a maiden 10-wicket haul with the match-winning scalp of Luke Procter (24), who was the only Northants player to reach double figures.
Left-armer Cook ended with innings figures of 5-20 and match figures of 10-41 as Northants sunk to a crushing defeat in head coach David Ripley’s final game in charge.
Ripley announced he was stepping down from the role earlier this month and it was confirmed earlier this week that his assistant coach, John Sadler, would take over.
