Read on the right lines

Chris Read © Getty Images

Buy this photo

Chris Read hit an unbeaten 161 as Nottinghamshire enjoyed the batsman-friendly conditions in the LV County Championship Division Two match against Essex at Chelmsford.

Read’s England ambitions have been thwarted by a perceived lack of runs, but earlier in the season he struck an unbeaten career-best 165 at Trent Bridge and has now moved to within five runs of surpassing it.

With Mark Wagh and Samit Patel also helping themselves to hundreds, Notts responded with 579 for seven on day three in reply to Essex's 700 for nine declared.

Read resisted all attempts to remove him during nearly five hours at the crease, striking 16 fours and four sixes in an innings that has spanned 253 deliveries.

One of those sixes, at the expenses of off-spinner James Middlebrook, carried him to his century during a sixth-wicket stand of 155 with Mark Ealham, who made 54.

Earlier, the overnight pair of Wagh and Patel carried their third-wicket partnership to 192. Like Read, both moved into three figures with a six.

Danish Kaneria was one of nine bowlers for Essex

On each occasion Danish Kaneria was the bowler to suffer but the Pakistan leg-spinner had the consolation of breaking the stand by bowling Wagh for 107, an effort that contained 17 fours in addition to that six.

Patel gathered two sixes among his 17 boundaries before he was caught behind for 117 chasing a wide delivery from medium-pacer Ravi Bopara.

David Hussey became another victim for wicket-keeper James Foster, this time to provide Andy Bichel with a wicket, but it was a further 51 overs before Essex were able to celebrate another wicket as Read and Ealham defied a succession of bowling changes.

Middlebrook eventually did so by trapping Ealham lbw and when Paul Franks suffered a similar fate against Kaneria soon afterwards, Notts were still 50 short of reaching 551 to avoid the follow-on.

But Read found another reliable partner in Graeme Swann and they had no difficulty in seeing off the threat.

Swann has so far contributed 37 to an unbroken stand of 78, while Essex have used nine bowlers, the most successful of which has been Kaneria, who, in taking 3-153 from 42 overs, picked up his 50th championship wicket of the summer.