The 2nd day of Cambridge MCCU vs Essex was the sunniest day so far with a good crowd, but began in a predictable way.
Cambridge resumed on 20-4, and provided some easy slip catching practice early on as Dean Bell (4), Matt Salisbury (5) and Alex Hearne (6) all fell within the first eight overs to leave the hosts 35-7. Tom Elliott and Alasdair Pollock took the total past 50, thanks to two set of four overthrows, which Essex weren't too worried about before Elliott (18) edged Greg Smith low to Tom Westley at slip, 61-8. Pollock then hammered 3 fours off Tymal Mills next over, including a massive top edge over third man. Alistair Allchin fell LBW for a nine ball duck to give Smith handy figures of 2-0 from 2 overs and Cambridge 73-9.
The Mills vs Pollock battle then hotted up, with the next ball hitting Pollock on the neck who then got up and smacked the next ball back past Mills for four. He followed that shot up by pulling a bouncer off the top edge out of the ground over square leg. The carnage carried in Mills next over as the first ball disappeared through cover for four and another bouncer was pulled just over a leaping Ben Foakes at Square Leg for six, this left Pollock on 44 from 35 balls, and Cambridge on the verge of reaching 100, they didn't, however as Grant Nicholson fell LBW for 1 to the first ball of Ravi Bopara's next over to leave Cambridge all out for 99, 229 runs behind Essex.
With no follow on enforced, Tom Westley and Rob Quiney came out for the 45 minutes before lunch and rattled along to 37-0 without any trouble. Quiney took 9 off the first over after lunch, as the pair looked untroubled by the student attack, with Nicholson coming in for some particular punishment as runs flowed easily. Quiney reached 50 from 73 balls, and celebrated next over by thumping Allchin over long on for six, two fours and another six over midwicket thudding off the wall of Hughes Hall. Westley was slower, reaching 50 from 89 balls but he too began to attack before Quiney reached his hundred from his 116th ball with another four. The score had reached 188-0 at tea, and any contest in the game was long gone with those 151 unbeaten runs that had been added.
The double hundred partnership came off Allchin before Pollock beat Quiney's outside edge and flattened the off stump for 112, Quiney was surprised that he was out, 209-1. Foakes joined Westley who soon reached his own 100 in the 51st over. Both batsmen then went after the bowlers, and spinner Akbar Ansari who seemed to keep bowling full tosses, went for 17 in his first two overs. Westley charged the first five balls of Ansari's next over, hitting the first four into gaps in the arc for two, before missing the fifth to be neatly stumped by Bell for 133, 281-2. Then the big moment of the evening as Bopara came out to bat, having only made four in the first innings, he'd of wanted a nice warmup knock to start the summer, only to be struck on the pad first ball and after a massive appeal, given out to give Ansari his 2nd.
That was to be the last wicket as, after negotiating the hat trick ball, Foakes (49*) and James Foster (34*) saw Essex through the last half hour to 335-3 from 70 overs a lead of 564 with one day to go.
