Henry Crocombe takes second hat-trick in eight days to rip through Essex at Chelmsford
Henry Crocombe has taken his second hat-trick in eight days, tearing through Essex's middle and lower order to turn a County Championship match on its head at Chelmsford.
The 24-year-old Sussex seamer reduced Essex from a comfortable 171-3 to 177 all out — seven wickets gone for six runs across 26 deliveries. Five of those wickets fell in the space of 14 balls without a single run conceded, a spell that read like a misprint on the scorecard. Crocombe finished with figures of 5-39. BBC Sport
The hat-trick itself arrived in his ninth over. Simon Harmer and Zaman Akhter were both trapped leg before — a mode of dismissal where the ball strikes the batsman's pad in line with the stumps — to the first two balls. Shane Snater then had his stumps rattled by the third. BBC Sport
What makes this remarkable is that Crocombe had never taken three wickets in successive balls in his career before last week. His first hat-trick came against Somerset at Hove, where he returned 5-56 and bowled the second-placed county out for 202 — a result that dented Somerset's push for a first-ever County Championship title. BBC Sport; Yahoo News
That earlier hat-trick was also his third five-wicket haul — a standard measure of a bowling performance where one player takes at least five of the ten wickets available — of the season. Now he has a fourth, and two in little over a week.
Essex's collapse handed Sussex a first-innings lead of 98. Sussex had posted 275 in their first innings, built around Jack Leaning's 60, with Ari Karvelas chipping in a brisk 38 from 44 balls on his return to first-class cricket after a year away. Karvelas had been released by the club and re-signed on a short-term deal. Essex's 177 was anchored by Charlie Allison's 56, compiled in a stand of 58 alongside Dean Elgar before Allison became Crocombe's first victim, trapped lbw. BBC Sport
Essex also lost paceman Sam Cook mid-match when he was called up by England, with Mitch Killeen rushed back from a loan spell at Gloucestershire as replacement. BBC Sport
By the close of day two, Sussex had moved to 90-4 in their second innings, extending their overall lead to 188. The match remains in the balance, but Crocombe's burst has given Sussex the upper hand at a ground where Essex would have fancied their position at 171-3.
Adding a layer of intrigue, Crocombe is leaving Sussex for Surrey at the end of the season. His farewell tour is producing the kind of numbers that will give his new employers real encouragement — and his current ones reason to wonder what they are letting go. BBC Sport
