Essex 303 for 9 (Browne 59, Cook 58, De Caires 7-105) vs Middlesex
As the sun beat down with unfamiliar vigour at Chelmsford, reminding the returning Championship crowd that cricket in September need not be exclusively a race against autumn's creeping shadows, you got the sense - long overdue after the dank weather of recent weeks - that we might be in for an Indian summer after all.
Alas for Middlesex, flirting once again with relegation after the optimism of last season's return to the top flight, that prospect is not going to be a literal one - at least, not for the duration of this particular contest against Essex's habitual title-challengers. (Or, as the case may now be, after the day's fast-forwarded events down at the Kia Oval, this season's former title-challengers…)
Either way, when Middlesex confirmed, shortly before the toss, that the recruitment of the India spinner Jayant Yadav had been delayed due to "visa issues", his absence thrust the club into a familiar bind - one that Josh De Cairesand his diligent offbreaks did his utmost to resolve, as he toiled away through 38 overs from the River End for the outstandingly dogged figures of 7 for 105.
De Caires' efforts included an unbroken run of 26 consecutive overs across the first two sessions, beginning with his deployment as an emergency brake as early as the ninth, after Alastair Cook and Nick Browne - not exactly the most Bazball pairing in the county game - had feasted on a rusty return to red-ball cricket from Ethan Bamber and Toby Roland-Jones, the latter making his first competitive appearance since July.
And no doubt, having been staring at a desperate day in the dirt when Cook and Browne, with 55 not out apiece, had rushed through to lunch with their first century partnership of the campaign, Middlesex's afternoon fightback showed ample spirit in adversity - a trait that you would, of course, expect the son of Mike Atherton to possess in spades.
From the moment he extracted Browne for 59 via a flinch to short leg in his third over after the break, to his extraction of Simon Harmer with the second ball of his third and final spell, de Caires claimed all seven of his wickets for 66 runs in the space of 19.2 overs, as Essex slipped from a daunting 122 for 0 to a less formidable 279 for 9, before Jamie Porter and Sam Cook hauled them to a second batting point with an unbroken stand of 24.
De Caires' methods were simple and to the point. An economical run-up, a high and repeatable action (far removed from the dog's-dinner leggies that Athers senior used to serve up at start of his Test career), and a canny use of the crease, changing his angle from over to round with only the rarest of let-ups in his accuracy.
The first sign that he might prove a handful came before lunch when Cook, otherwise cruising along on 41 with eight fours, fenced in the air to the vacant gully as the ball gripped and popped on an already dry and used surface. Forty minutes of sun-baking later, he returned with a dramatic flurry of three big wickets in four overs. Browne and Cook both fell in the space of 11 balls, the latter pinned lbw as he thrust down the line of off stump, before Tom Westley was bowled off his gloves for 19, as he failed to account for more leaping turn from that tantalising patch of rough outside off.
In his very next over, De Caires should have made it four, when Dan Lawrence - soon to be Surrey-bound, and perhaps already beset with conflicting emotions given how this final shot at Essex silverware seems to be slipping towards The Oval - drove loosely to slip where Ryan Higgins couldn't close his fingers round the chance. Bamber, however, prevented the error from being costly as Lawrence was soon strangled down the leg-side for 8, and De Caires was quickly back to wicket-taking ways as Paul Walter, a star of the Hundred but a peripheral presence here, was bowled for 2 as he offered no shot from round the wicket.
A second bad miss dented De Caires' progress, as Adam Rossington was dropped on 18 by Mark Stoneman at short midwicket, but after a threatening stand of 66 in 18 overs with Matt Critchley, he became De Caires' fifth victim as Luke Hollman kept his balance well inside the long-on ropes. Three overs later, he had his sixth - Stoneman atoning in the deep after Essex's own Yadav debutant, Umesh, had clubbed his previous three balls for four, four, six.
And if that rough treatment had hinted to Roland-Jones that his spinner needed a break from the fray, it was only a short-lived respite. Ten wicketless overs later, and De Caires was back in a bid to finish what he had started, and duly struck with his second ball, luring Harmer into a hack to long-off.
Remarkably, for a player who had only claimed 12 previous first-class wickets, this was not the first time that De Caires had taken seven in an innings - down at the Ageas Bowl in June, he had once again held Middlesex's attack together with 7 for 144, only for that effort to be trumped by Liam Dawson's 12 for the match in a crushing innings win. And the danger, with the sun smiling on late-season Chelmsford and with Harmer itching to add to his season's haul of 45 wickets, is that history might just have been primed to repeat itself.
Nevertheless, for the time being, De Caires had done the needful, to give Middlesex a puncher's chance in a match that could yet prove critical to their survival hopes, with Kent currently just three points adrift at second-from-bottom. As for Essex, they are still waiting for Surrey to blink at the top. That's not going to happen this week, but a sixth victory on the spin over the coming days will ensure that the title isn't gone just yet. And, as Browne put it at the close, on today's evidence, Harmer "is already licking his lips" to get a taste of the action.
