Dane Vilas top-scored for Lancashire with 74 while Haseeb Hameed proved his fitness after suffering an injury scare

Alan Gardner at Chelmsford07-Apr-2017
ScorecardThe first day of the season is as good a day as any to be reminded that Championship success is usually hard-won. Both Essex and Lancashire could feel satisfaction come the close at Chelmsford; both will know that further unstinting effort will be required to sway this contest over the coming days.Lancashire may feel they had the best of it, particularly after recovering from 160 for 6 to pass 300, thanks to a 51-run last-wicket stand between James Anderson and Kyle Jarvis, who then took a wicket apiece before the close. Nevertheless, Essex’s new-look attack acquitted themselves well by bowling out Lancashire after being put into the field. All but two Lancashire batsmen made starts but only Dane Vilas managed to pass fifty, as Neil Wagner and Aaron Beard – overseas pro and homegrown tyro – collected six wickets between them.No one faced more balls than Haseeb Hameed, who provided some proof of his fitness after sustaining a hand injury in Lancashire’s university match. Hameed was watched by James Whitaker, the national selector, and Mark Ramprakash, England’s batting coach, as well as his parents during his first significant innings since making a highly regarded Test debut in India over the winter.Hameed’s tour of India was cut short by a fracture to the little finger on his left hand, which required the insertion of a metal plate. He sustained a blow practising his fielding at short leg before play against Cambridge and then had to leave the field while batting; however, a scan detected no further damage and he batted without discomfort for just over two hours here before falling three runs short of fifty.”The finger’s fine, it was a bit of a freak incident, trapping it in the warm-up and then I tried batting and it got quite painful. So I think we made the right decision in getting it checked out and thankfully it was all okay,” he said.”The surgeon suggested, when there’s a bit of time off, it might be worth getting [the plate] out. But I think there’s a six-week recovery period from having that surgery to remove it, so it wouldn’t make sense now. If I’ve got a bit of time in the future, I probably will take it out.”Ryan ten Doeschate, Essex’s captain, suggested before the game that Lancashire’s batting might present a “chink in their armour” and that looked a shrewd assessment as the visitors experienced a middle-order slide of 4 for 42 on a pristine afternoon. However, Vilas, one of three new Kolpak signings on show, provided the grit that Lancashire desperately needed with 74 before a ticklish thrash between Anderson and Jarvis lifted them towards a more competitive total.For all the topics being discussed at the newly anointed Cloudfm County Ground on the first day of the new season – Hameed’s availability, Alastair Cook’s absence (depriving the crowd of a head-to-head with Anderson), the Kolpak issue, Essex’s survival chances (or Lancashire’s for that matter) – perhaps the closest to local hearts was the decision to drop James Foster for the first time in his 17-year Essex career. Adam Wheater, his replacement behind the stumps, has pedigree as a Division One batsman, as well as the advantage of being from the same east London manor (aka Gooch Country) but it will not be an easy gig.It is accepted around Chelmsford that Foster cannot go on forever but there were rueful shakes of the head when Wheater failed to get a hand on a stumping chance provided by Steven Croft in the first over after lunch. Croft and Hameed had quieted a healthy crowd during a third-wicket stand of 68 but there was a notable frisson of disappointment as the opportunity for Simon Harmer’s first Championship wicket zipped by.By then, Hameed had set about reassuring those nervous about the state of his delicate hands during a composed innings that featured several sumptuously timed drives. Barring a skittish swipe at the first ball he received from Wagner – a team-mate last season, back when Hameed was still a precocious talent smarting at missing out on the U-19 World Cup – he seemed to have everything in the right place, a sort of batting feng shui as he lined up the bowling with the precision displayed during his debut Test series in India. That is, until he fractionally misjudged a delivery from Jamie Porter that kept coming back in at him to clip the top of off stump the over after Croft’s reprieve.For a brief while, there was a vision of England’s possible batting future in the middle, as Liam Livingstone joined Hameed. Livingstone, now at first drop and with a chance to impress after batting in the lower-middle order during his debut season, showcased his revolving-door wrists with a second-ball four that rattled away to the deep midwicket rope and he stroked five more boundaries in between ducking Wagner’s head-hunting bouncers.Livingstone’s attacking instincts eventually got the better of him, a wild flash providing Beard with his first wicket – via a goalkeeper save from Tom Westley (second slip) that was collected on the dive by Varun Chopra (first). Beard also removed Vilas, as a leading edge sailed to mid-off, while Harmer did eventually get Croft, taken at short fine leg when sweeping. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, in his 43rd year and only in the country a few days, was run out after a mix-up with Vilas.