Sam Hain dug in to finish 44*, but a good opening spell from Jamie Porter gave Essex the early advantage over Warwickshire on a rain-affected opening day of their County Championship match at Edgbaston.
Day 1: Warwickshire, 113/7, lead Essex by 113 runs.
Porter removed three of Warwickshire’s top order with the new ball and finished with figures of four for 36, leaving the hosts in a difficult position at 113 for seven before rain brought an early end to proceedings.
Hain defied with skill and sound judgment for an unbeaten 44 from 93 balls but Porter, well supported by three other seamers who all took a wicket, provided Essex with the strong day they needed to bounce back from last week’s ten-wicket defeat to Somerset.
It was a good toss for Essex to win as they chose to bowl under heavy cloud cover, likely to be the only helpful bowling conditions in the match as Edgbaston pitches tend to get better for batting the longer a game goes.
Porter made the most of the conditions in an aggressive and skilful opening spell of 7-1-19-3, all his wickets coming from potent deliveries which left the batter blameless. Alex Davies fell first ball when he nicked a perfectly-shaped outswinger to wicketkeeper Michael Pepper, Rob Yates edged a similar ball to third slip and Dan Mousley was lbw to a ferocious in-ducker.
Beau Webster plumped for a policy of counter-attack but, after inside-edging a fortuitous four, he charged again and missed at Shane Snater. Zaman Akhter, making his Essex debut, added the wicket of Ed Barnard with a big inswinger that won an interesting lbw decision.
Warwickshire were grateful for the resolve and watchfulness of Hain but he lost two more partners quickly after lunch. Porter returned to trap Zen Mailk lbw and Jordan Thompson was spectacularly caught at third slip by a diving Paul Walter off Sam Cook. Rain then arrived so the rest followed Thompson into the pavilion before another ball could be bowled.
Warwickshire have made three changes from the team that was beaten by Sussex at Hove last week with Malik, Keith Barker and Nathan Gilchrist replacing Kai Smith, Michael Booth and Chris Woakes.
For Essex, former Gloucestershire seamer Akhter has replaced Wiaan Mulder, who has returned to South Africa for personal reasons. Tom Westley failed a fitness test on his damaged finger so must wait a little longer to find the 17 runs he needs to become the 21st Essex player to reach to score 13,000 in first-class cricket.
Warwickshire batting coach Matt Walker said: “We would like to have bowled first. Bowling conditions were favourable and they have an attack which we know exploits those conditions really well.
“They bowled well. There were some really good balls in that opening salvo, but we could have played better. We were guilty of trying to find too much of a way to force the issue back on them and fell into that trap a little bit.
“Sam Hain batted really well. He showed what you can achieve with a really clear game plan. It’s great that he’s not out overnight and hopefully we can go back out there tomorrow and put on another 100.”