We have enough bowlers that any one of them shouldn't get over-bowled. If we had only 4, they would be in a situation where they might have to bowl 20 in a day but short spells between 6 front line seamers, should be fine. Obviously if there is a big partnership, they will be frustrated and look weary but we have enough to force a win here.

4-43 at the end there, lovely perseverance from our lads.

I am claiming the wicket of Clarke, the 8th to go in the 90's. I predicted it, I am the Soothsayer and King of the day.

Come on, let's get Clarke out soon. 7 batsmen in this round of matches, have been out in the 90's.

Well, what the hell do I know. Let me see now, "Oh no, I thought I was going to win the lottery tonight but alas...".

I was hoping with the way we batted in the first 30 minutes, that we might be able to get to 450 within the 110 overs but hey, this is superb compared to 179-6.

We would have probably settled for that at the start with hopefully a chance to get to 400 tomorrow.

Hold the presses, JB has got a game.

Hain does appear over the last 4 years, to have got some awful decisions, usually caught behind when he hasn't got near the ball. We need everyone to 'Chip In' here and get a good score going otherwise if conditions are good for batting, we could be facing a big deficit unless the bowlers do us another favour.

Not having Barker in the side is a surprise unless he is feeling jaded. Also surprised to see Tongue not taking the new ball but that does appear to be a thing with some counties, not giving a Test player first use of the ball.

Even if it is our neighbours, it's good he gets some cricket as he might not get very much with our current crop of seamers. He is a very decent bloke, I have spoken to him a few times most notably after the Royal London Cup Final where he signed my ticket and spoke at length whilst we waited for our coaches because we had stuffed Surrey by 3.50pm. He is very polite, decent and listens to what people say and he is a real contender for a PR job in cricket as his way with people is quite obvious. I wish him luck even if it is with the Pears.

A lot of people on here, me very much so, mentioned the need to have some variation, that variation was Barker and he did make a difference in the end, bowling well in both innings and he does bat as well. We do though, need to maybe get a spinner in. I am not a fan of part-time spin as it never really makes a big difference apart from changing things up for the sake of it. This is England's dilemma, playing Jacks in the Ashes series whilst Leach sat at home scratching his head. Jacks will never bowl out a side in the CC so why do England think he will do something at Test level. For this reason we need a proper front-line spinner and if people say it will weaken the batting, tough, we have enough batting there to make big enough scores, we shouldn't feel the need to carry the batsmen by filling the team full of allrounders.

Brilliant from the bowlers and Barker's spell this morning, like turning the clock back to 2012 (WTF, 14 years ago) and the little cricketer in my head is saying, "That bloody Sussex game, if only....". Can we please have pitches like this for the rest of the season, even though there were some awful shots and the overheads also played their part.

Flippin' 'eck.

He didn't make himself popular amongst old Essex team-mates when he mentioned the 1991 'Game-Swap' in his autobiography when he told of Essex and Lancashire 'Giving' each other victories during August Bank Holiday Monday, Essex played an insipid JPL game on the Sunday when their openers were told to go easy and not try and score too quickly and eventually Lancs got a very meagre target to chase in their pursuit of the JPL title and then on the Monday, on a very flat pitch, Lancs gave Essex 270 in the CC in about 70 overs. Both umpires (Duddlestone or Holder), were old hands at the ways that counties often exchanged games if both were chasing titles in separate game over a weekend and one of them was so baffled by the 'Target', that he stood by the stumps when the declaration came and gave it the old 'Double Teapot' stance and stayed like that for a while, it appeared dodgy at the time and The Times correspondent called it "A Christmas hamper for the starving.." and both side ignored questions until Topley admitted that the whole saga was planned before both games. I can remember that more than Topley's bowling.

Yep, bowling at anything above 230 would be nice but even then, we have to bowl well.

Only a small lead then, would be nice to be 200 ahead with wickets in hand by the end of today.

Farrell does appear to have a good reading of the game, seems to know about the players she's commentating on and I do think she is a genuine lover of county cricket.

They do appear to be very over-the-top with praise and when anything major happens.

Not sure I like the Essex commentary, with becomes 'Wiv', through becomes 'Frew' and third becomes 'Fird'.