Lancashire avoided their lowest ever total in first class cricket on a day when a farcical 26 wickets fell against Essex at Chelmsford.
The Red Roses, third in the table, were 25-6 in their second innings on day one of their championship match having been 7-6 just minutes earlier. It came on the back of their first innings total of 131 in which Simon Harmer took 5-41 and No.9 Tom Bailey top scored with 24 before claiming 5-36 as Essex were dismissed for 107.
Inevitably Sir Alastair Cook was the only man to get to grips with conditions with 40 for the home side before his bowlers then revelled in a second new ball under the floodlights. Shane Snater took three wickets in four balls before adding a fourth as Lancashire were in danger of failing to beat their all time low of 25 all out against Derbyshire in 1871.
And Lancashire head coach Glen Chapple slammed the Chelmsford pitch, referring to the final half hour of play which saw his side slip 6-7 at one point as "completely ridiculous". Speaking to the BBC, Chapple said: "We've got lads in really good form having really good seasons who are desperate to win a game, and they've just found the pitch unplayable really.
"I thought we scrapped brilliantly to get to what we did to be honest and then we bowled them out for 25, 27 short of our score. Obviously the surface of the pitch looks poor. The ball is coming off it different every time. If you watch the batters' innings through they can't lay a bat on it.
"Obviously we're going to try and fight to get as many in front as we can and see what happens to the pitch in the remaining part of the game. We had to bat under the lights and that just exacerbated the movement.
"We've got really good players who couldn't hit the ball tonight, so it's difficult to say what'’s going on, but obviously it's a really tough pitch. For the first three-quarters of the day there was a ball with your name on it, that was a given. The last 30 minutes, completely ridiculous."
Chapple added that Lancashire were concerned about the pitch before the County Championship game started, but did not expect it to be as poor as it was. He continued: "Sometimes pitches look different and you don’t know [how they will play].
"You never assume anything, we just prepared to play as well as we could. We knew it was a bat-first [pitch] because the surface isn’t really intact. One end has got footholes in it, so we knew it would potentially get worse. But we didn’t expect it to play like that.
"Both teams have got good bowling units, but in a season where runs have been achievable, this is completely different. No way, shape or form is that good enough. We've come to play cricket for four days. No way is that good enough."
Tumbling wickets were a feature of the game at the Ageas Bowl where second placed Hampshire hoped to pile the pressure on Surrey and started well by dismissing Kent for 165. Their response was a rather dismal 57 all out to leave their title push in disarray as table topping Surrey were taken to 292-6 thanks to a delightful 136 from Ollie Pope at the Mickey Stewart Oval, renamed for the week in honour of their 90-year-old former player, coach and president.
