Rothesay County Championship, Division One, Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford (day three)

Sussex 275 & 230: Coles 79; Akhter 4-51

Essex 177 Crocombe 5-39 & 197-7: Critchley 63*; Coles 3-65

Essex (3 pts) need 132 more runs to beat Sussex (4 pts)

Match scorecard

James Coles carried Sussex to the brink of victory with an all-round performance that leaves them requiring just three wickets on the final day at Chelmsford while Essex need another 132 runs to pull off an unlikely victory.

Coles, 22, who bats right-handed and bowls spin with his left, showed just why England called him into the white-ball squad for this month’s T20 series with Sri Lanka.

He rediscovered his batting touch with a battling 79 as Sussex were bowled out for 230, before continuing his sorcery with the ball.

His 3-7 in Essex’s first innings had been overshadowed by Henry Crocombe’s hat-trick, but he re-emerged into the limelight to finish day three with figures of 3-65.

When bad light stopped play with four overs remaining, Matt Critchley had almost single-handedly defied Sussex for more than two hours with an unbeaten 63 from 82 balls.

Coles had been instrumental in helping Sussex set 329 to win in four-and-a-half sessions.

Zaman Akhter had wrapped up the last four Sussex wickets to finish with his best figures for Essex of 4-51. At the other end, Simon Harmer chipped in with 4-96, including three wickets in 15 balls, either side of a night’s sleep.

Coles then opened the bowling and, with his 11th delivery, he had Paul Walter snaffled at short leg.

Sussex could afford to set wide open, attacking fields and Dean Elgar and Tom Westley capitalised. But when they had plundered 66 inside 11 overs, Henry Crocombe revived memories of his first-innings hat-trick by knocking Elgar’s off-stump out of the ground.

Westley tried to reverse-sweep Jack Carson for a third time but only top-edged to the wicketkeeper and Essex’s top three were gone within 16 overs.

Charlie Allison and Critchley reduced the arrears in a 71-run fourth-wicket stand.

Allison launched successive sixes to long-on. But two balls after the second, he dragged Carson to midwicket.

Harmer kept Critchley company for 13 overs before edging Ari Karvelas to slip. That brought in Michael Pepper, nursing a badly bruised thumb which had prevented him keeping earlier in the day. But he lasted just 13 balls before Coles bowled turned one sharply to disturb the off-stump and he had a third wicket when Akhter was trapped lbw for a pair.

Essex’s deepening injury crisis, with Pepper joining the list overnight, led to the signing of George Bell from Lancashire, external on an emergency loan to the end of the season. He was straight into action behind the stumps but was not eligible to bat.

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