Hogan poops Essex promotion party

Glamorgan 286 and 296 (Wallace 78, Rudolph 56, Bragg 54) beat Essex 319 (ten Doeschate 117, Foster 64, Wheater 59, Meschede 5-84) and 252 ( Chopra 79, Hogan 5-45, Van der Gugten 4-56 ) by 11 runs Scorecard

Essex’s players set off for a night on the town to celebrate their Division Two title success after suffering only their third Specsavers County Championship defeat of the summer.

Promotion to Division One having been sealed on Tuesday when they garnered the five bonus points required to put them in an unassailable position, they found Michael Hogan in party-pooping mood with five wickets for 45 to leave Essex 11 runs short of victory.

It was the Australian’s second five-wicket haul in successive games, taking him to 44 Championship wickets for the season. He was well supported by the parsimonious Timm van der Gugten, who claimed four for 56 from 29.5 overs, and ended Essex’s obdurate last-wicket partnership with 19 balls to spare.

At one point, Varun Chopra looked as if he might carry Essex to a seventh win on his own when he rattled up 79 out of the 138 scored while he was at the crease. His seventh Championship score in excess of fifty this season – the other six were for Warwickshire – came from 128 balls with 10 fours.

But with wickets falling all around him, and no one sticking around long after he had gone, Essex were always ahead of the rate but without enough men to see them over the line.

Essex had been set 264 to win in a minimum of 91 overs, and the openers put on 92 fairly comfortably in 26 overs before …

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