HAD this game not effectively lost two sessions to rain it is entirely possible it would have reached an enthralling finish. As it was, the final day followed an old pattern: with 76 overs remaining after a late start, Essex’s attack never threatened to find the incisiveness required to claim Gloucestershire’s five outstanding wickets before the point of no return.

Mark Hardinges will remember events with delight, ending unbeaten with 107 from 93 balls, but the contest had effectively ended a good 30 minutes before he celebrated a maiden Championship century with unconfined joy. To their credit, Essex never resorted to net bowlers, but when tailenders can take 106 runs off the last 14 overs of an innings, the pitch is plainly too flat for the bowlers to counter.

By tonight, a quarter of this year’s second-division race will have been run and Essex will probably stand second to Derbyshire. Yet nothing has upset the prediction at the outset that any of six or seven sides could realistically go up. Almost all teams have strength in depth with the bat and little bite with the ball.

Essex, despite defensive fields, never really contained opponents who led by 122 runs. They did undo Ian Harvey in the eleventh over when the Australian followed an outswinger and was wonderfully held by Varun Chopra at slip for 27. Tony Palladino then pulled off an utterly magnificent running effort on the boundary to remove Steve Adshead for 58, the wicketkeeper’s first fifty of the season. This was the fourth wicket in the game gained with an apparent long hop by Ryan ten Doeschate, a man with the happy, Bothamesque knack of striking with seemingly poor balls that bounce more than batsmen expect.

By this stage, the lead was 216 with 50 overs left and Martyn Ball joined Hardinges to contribute 29 to a 97-run romp for the eighth wicket. Three consolation scalps in eight balls for Alex Tudor came far too late but Chopra had time to add an unbeaten fifty to his historic century on Championship debut.