James Wharton stood resolute at one end while wickets fell all around him as Yorkshire pressed the self-destruct button after a promising start against Essex on a difficult Chelmsford wicket.
The 24-year-old right-hander came in when the first wicket fell at 71 and was still there 55 overs later on 63 not out from 145 balls when Matt Critchley wrapped up Yorkshire’s innings on 216 with his fourth wicket.
The heart had been ripped out of Yorkshire’s innings when four wickets fell in six overs, three of them in nine balls, as a promising 108-1 became 128-5 and continued in the same vein at the same time as Wharton painstakingly racked up his second County Championship half-century of the season. Only opener Adam Lyth, with 58 from 148 balls, showed any similar resolve.
Watched by a bumper first-day crowd of 2,612, bolstered by a number of school parties, Essex lost both openers and the nightwatchman in the 16 overs remaining in the evening session while reducing the arrears by 27 runs.
Charlie Allsion nicked Ben Coad behind, Dean Elgar fished at one from George Hill to be caught at second slip and Jamie Porter was beaten for pace by the same bowler.
Yorkshire had taken one look at the wicket, which had plenty of grass left on it, and decided to bat. It played dead for a session and a half and then suddenly became more responsive for bowlers who had toiled previously.
Yorkshire also had gone into the game without either of their overseas players, the seamers Ben Sears and Jordan Buckingham, plumping instead for an extra batsman in Jonny Tattersall for his first outing of the season. It was a plan that backfired spectacularly.
However, before the mid and late afternoon clatter of wickets, the openers had moved along serenely for the initial 23 overs during which Lyth, on 36, had been dropped at wide mid-off by a running Tom Westley.
Both Lyth and Finlay Bean had already come down the wicket and lofted Simon Harmer in similar directions for boundaries. The seamers had generally been despatched through the covers.
The chance did not prove costly and, three overs later, Bean looked to drive Shane Snater but played down the wrong line and was lbw.
From scoring without trouble, Yorkshire went into their shell and Lyth and Wharton added just nine runs in the eight overs that preceded lunch.
Lyth had been particularly watchful, but stirred after lunch and reached his half-century from 120 balls when he lent back and cut Harmer for his ninth four.
Lyth added one more boundary, a leg glance off Kasun Rajitha, before the Sri Lankan paceman trapped him lbw, playing an indeterminate prod.
Bringing in Tattersall did not pay the dividend required as he departed for four to the second ball of a Critchley spell, wafting one that turned into leg slip’s hands.
Jonny Bairstow and Hill departed to successive balls from Porter, the captain lbw on the back foot, and Hill getting an inside edge that carried to the wicketkeeper.
Wharton and Matty Revis knuckled down to steady things for a while before two self-inflicted wounds heralded another slew of wickets.
Revis carelessly top-edged Critchley to point where Harmer was steady under the steepling ball. And Dom Bess followed almost immediately, leaving alone a straight delivery from Rajitha and being surprised when it rapped him squarely on the pads.
Wharton took more than three hours over his fifty, late-cutting Rajitha for four to reach the milestone from 138 balls.
But he lost three more partners in quick succession when Coad pulled Critchley to short midwicket and Dan Moriarty’s cameo embracing six fours in 24 ended when he was lbw playing around one from Noah Thain.
Critchley finished with figures of 4-49 when he had Jack White caught at chest height by slip.
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