Warwickshire 113 for 7 (Hain 44*, Porter 4-36) vs Essex
A superb opening spell from Jamie Porter put Essex in command of Warwickshire on a rain-hit opening day of their Rothesay County Championship fixture at Edgbaston.
Porter blasted out Warwickshire's top three with the new ball and ended the day with 4 for 36 as Warwickshire limped to 113 for 7 before rain wiped out the last session.
Sam Hain defied with skill and sound judgment for an unbeaten 44 from 93 balls but Porter, well supported by three other seamers who all took a wicket, provided Essex with the strong day they needed to bounce back from last week's ten-wicket defeat to Somerset.
It was a good toss for Essex to win as they chose to bowl under heavy cloud cover, likely to be the only helpful bowling conditions in the match as Edgbaston pitches tend to get better for batting the longer a game goes.
Porter made the most of the conditions in an aggressive and skilful opening spell of 7-1-19-3, all his wickets coming from potent deliveries which left the batter blameless. Alex Davies fell first ball when he nicked a perfectly-shaped outswinger to wicketkeeper Michael Pepper, Rob Yates edged a similar ball to third slip and Dan Mousley was lbw to a ferocious in-ducker.
Beau Webster plumped for a policy of counterattack but, after inside-edging a fortuitous four, he charged again and missed at Shane Snater. Zaman Akhter, making his Essex debut, added the wicket of Ed Barnard with a big inswinger that won an interesting lbw decision.
Warwickshire were grateful for the resolve and watchfulness of Hain but he lost two more partners quickly after lunch. Porter returned to trap Zen Mailk lbw and Jordan Thompson was spectacularly caught at third slip by a diving Paul Walter off Sam Cook. Rain then arrived so the rest followed Thompson into the pavilion before another ball could be bowled.
Warwickshire have made three changes from the team that was beaten by Sussex at Hove last week with Malik, Keith Barker and Nathan Gilchrist replacing Kai Smith, Michael Booth and Chris Woakes.
For Essex, former Gloucestershire seamer Akhter has replaced Wiaan Mulder, who has returned to South Africa for personal reasons. Tom Westley failed a fitness test on his damaged finger so must wait a little longer to find the 17 runs he needs to become the 21st Essex player to reach to score 13,000 in first-class cricket.
