County cricket: Lancashire v Somerset, Glamorgan v Nottinghamshire – live!

DIVISION ONE

Chelmsford: Essex 310 and 79-1 BEAT Gloucestershire 136 and 252 BY NINE WICKETS.

The Rose Bowl: Hampshire 370-9dec v Warwickshire 217 and 212-9

Canterbury: Kent 335 v Northants 303 and 284-5

Trafalgar Road: Lancashire 624-9 v Somerset 446

North Marine Road: Yorkshire 521 and 65-2 v Surrey 515

DIVISION TWO

Chester-le-Street: Durham 296 v Derbyshire 283 and 329-6

Sophia Gardens: Glamorgan 318 and 421-5 dec v Nottinghamshire 285 and 19-1

Merchant Taylors’ School: Middlesex 188 and 240 LOST TO Worcestershire 191 and 238-3 BY SEVEN WICKETS.

Hove: Sussex 588-9 v Leicestershire 529-4

A Baz-balling Ed Pollock bamboozled Middlesex to set up a seven-wicket victory for Worcestershire on a capricious Merchant Taylors’ pitch. His 113, in just 77 balls, included seven sixes which crashed into various festival tents, endangering ice creams and scorecards alike. His highest score also made easy pickings of a target of 238 and, after Pollock eventually fell going for another whopper, the captain Brett D’Oliveira hurried his side over the line.

“After the last 10 weeks, where I haven’t scored a bean, I was thinking: ‘I’ve got in, I’m going to make this count,’” Pollock said. “I owe the team a lot of runs, I had a lot of making up to do.”

A three-day victory also for Essex, who wrapped up the remaining four Gloucestershire wickets – Simon Harmer dusting his lapel with eight for 112, 13 for 156 in the match. The winless Gloucestershire could at least be buoyed by the performance of Zafar Gohar, who hit 81 from 75 balls to ensure Essex needed to bat again.

High-scoring draws seemed inevitable at Scarborough, where Surrey’s Rory Burns was finally out for 132, and Yorkshire’s Dom Bess toiled away for five for 126; and Southport, where Keaton Jennings danced to 318 against Somerset, only the sixth Lancashire player to join the triple-century club. There were also centuries for Derbyshire’s Brooke Guest and Leus du Plooy, the Leicestershire trio of Louis Kimber, Wiaan Mulder and Colin Ackermann and Glamorgan’s Eddie Byrom and Sam Northeast.

Good morning! Day four, broiling sunshine, seven games still in play.

A few run-compiling competitions going on, but spice in the crunch still at Sophia Gardens, where Nottinghamshire have to bat out the day, Chester-le-Street, where I wouldn’t bet against Derbyshire, and Canterbury, where Kent’s fragile batting will be put to the test. Hampshire just have to grab one more wicket and then knock up a handful of runs to defeat last years Champs at the Rose Bowl. And at Southport, even Somerset can bat out the day on a batting track from the gods. Can’t they?