Essex v Warwickshire: Scores and match report from County Championship Division One

Final match scores (Chelmsford)

Essex win by an innings and 164 runs 

Essex 1st inns: 541-9 dec (164 overs. Bopara 192, Foster 121, Browne 84; Patel 4-138)

Wawickshire 1st inns: 283 (108.4 overs. Patel 71, Hain 58; Harmer 6-92, Wagner 2-95)

Warwickshire 2nd inns: 94 (53.2 overs. Umeed 21; Harmer 8-36)

Day four report

Simon Harmer ran roughshod over Warwickshire's batting line-up as they succumbed to an innings-and-164-run hammering at the hands of Specsavers County Championship Division One leaders Essex.

Harmer took a career best eight for 36, with only opener Ian Westwood and captain Ian Bell resisting the South African-born off-spinner, as Warwickshire disintegrated to 94 all out on the final day of the Division One fixture at Chelmsford.

Only four players reached double figures - Andrew Umeed top-scoring with 21 - and the visitors lost their last eight wickets for 47 runs as they collapsed to their fourth innings defeat in six matches this season.

Needing 258 runs to make Essex bat again, they fell woefully short and this latest humiliation already leaves rock-bottom Warwickshire 40 points adrift of safety and contemplating a battle against the drop.

Harmer, though, proved irresistible as he claimed match figures of 14 for 128 on a worn pitch that was also used for Essex's dramatic Royal London Cup semi-final defeat by Nottinghamshire on Friday night.

With five fielders surrounding each Warwickshire lamb to the slaughter, there were enough appeals to have ended the game long before the close quarter of an hour after a late lunch at 2.17pm.

Neil Wagner, playing his last game for the county before he steps aside to accommodate Mohammad Amir as overseas player, claimed the first wicket of the day before Harmer took centre stage.

The New Zealander Test seamer removed Bell in the eighth over of the morning to reduce Warwickshire to 47 for three.

Before he left the field at lunch, with Warwickshire 90 for eight, Wagner received a signed magnum of champagne to acknowledge his sterling efforts in helping Essex make a sensational start to their first season in Division One.

Harmer bowled 39 overs, almost unchanged, on the day before, and entered the fray on day four after Bell's departure.

With his sixth ball he had Umeed moving back indecisively and falling lbw. Two Harmer balls later, Sam Hain's attempt to check the sweep he planned resulted in him popping up a catch to Ryan ten Doeschate at short leg.

Harmer was as economical as ever, though when he gave one a bit of width, Rikki Clarke drove crisply through the covers for four. With Tim Ambrose, Clarke put a brake on the Essex charge for 16 overs before another clatter of wickets.

Clarke went controversially to a ball that pitched well outside off-stump and didn't look as if it would disturb the stumps as it turned to rap him on his pad, leaving the all-rounder looking aghast at the decision, while Ambrose threw his bat to the ground in frustration.

Next ball, Keith Barker tried to paddle the delivery away, got a top edge and was caught behind by Jamie Foster.

Jeetan Patel, who hit a quickfire 71 the previous evening, took successive boundaries off Harmer before he became the latest lbw victim on his back foot to another that spun in.

Boyd Rankin was Harmer's 13th scalp of the match when he completely misjudged a slow full-toss and was lbw.

Sunny Singh did not last long either, stretching forward and edging to Alastair Cook at slip as Essex clinched their fourth win of the season.

Day three report

Simon Harmer took six wickets for 92 runs in a marathon bowling stint to help leaders Essex enforce the follow-on in the Specsavers County Championship Division One match against Warwickshire.

His Essex team-mates formed a guard of honour as the off-spinner left the field to a rousing ovation from a sizeable third-day Chelmsford crowd, after his first five-wicket haul since joining at the start of the season gave the hosts control.

The South African, who has now taken 25 Championship wickets, helped dismiss Warwickshire for 283 in 109 overs, well short of the 392 target to make Essex bat again.

Harmer was then back in action after six overs of Warwickshire's second innings - and he had Jonathan Trott leg before wicket for eight, not playing a shot to the final ball of the day.

Warwickshire were 27 for two in the 11 overs available before the close, still 231 runs short of avoiding their fourth innings defeat in six Championship games this summer.

Harmer bowled at the Hayes Close End from 11.30am until 4.35pm, with only breaks for lunch and tea - and during the afternoon session he had figures of 17-10-20-1.

So difficult was he to get away that the usually belligerent Rikki Clarke took 30 balls to get off the mark - and only some late big hitting by Jeetan Patel, who claimed 36 of his run-a-ball 71 from the 28 deliveries he faced from Harmer, dented the 28-year-old's figures.

When Harmer was taken out of the attack his rest was only brief as he immediately switched to the River End and soon had Keith Barker lbw to break an entertaining eighth-wicket stand of 76 with Patel, before removing Patel to a return catch.

Apart from Patel, the only other Warwickshire innings of note was from Sam Hain, whose 58 was his best score of a scratchy season.

Trott went to the fifth ball of the day, pulling Neil Wagner to Varun Chopra at square leg, then Bell - after seeing a shot drop just short of Alastair Cook at slip - hit Harmer straight to the former England captain to depart for 32 and end a 66-run fourth-wicket partnership with Hain.

Tim Ambrose and Hain both survived chances before Hain nicked Paul Walter to James Foster, then the return of Wagner did for Ambrose, who fired the ball straight to Chopra at point for 25.

Clarke's 45-ball contribution ended when he was trapped lbw by Harmer for seven but Patel changed the tempo of the innings when he came in, hitting Harmer for two sixes.

Patel's half-century, passing his previous best for the season, came from 48 balls, and when Barker departed, Patel had scored 58 of their 76-run stand.

Boyd Rankin became Harmer's fifth scalp, his second lbw victim after changing ends. His sixth - Patel - soon followed.

When Warwickshire batted again, Walter had Ian Westwood caught behind without scoring, before Trott departed.

Day two report

Ravi Bopara and James Foster both collected long-awaited centuries in a sixth-wicket stand of 229 as Essex kept Warwickshire in the field for more than five sessions at a sweltering Chelmsford.

The pair 's 66-over partnership - a record for an Essex sixth wicket against Warwickshire, beating the 140 by Keith Fletcher and Allan Border at Edgbaston in 1988 - enabled the Division One leaders to declare five overs post-tea, just after the third new ball had been taken, on 541 for nine.

By the close, Warwickshire were 56 for two, still 332 short of their follow-on target as they attempt to avoid a fourth innings defeat in seven Specsavers County Championship matches this summer.

Bopara had gone nearly three years without a championship hundred to his name. By the time he was out just after tea, having batted for eight hours, he was within eight runs of a double-century.

Foster - ousted from wicketkeeping duties for the first four championship games of the season by the return to the county of Adam Wheater - leapt in the air and pumped his fist three times in the direction of the home changing room after posting his first three-figure total for nearly 13 months.

Bopara's previous century had been completed on July 1, 2014, against Gloucestershire, also at Chelmsford, and he had three times been out in the nineties, twice of 99, in the last 12 months alone.

The 32-year-old clipped Jeetan Patel past backward point for the single just before noon that took him to the 27th first-class century of his career. At that point he had been at the crease for 221 balls.

When he went to a tired-looking heave-ho against Patel 158 balls later, playing all around it, he had hit 16 fours and three sixes - two of them straight and long from part-time spinner Andrew Umeed's only over.

Foster, meanwhile, had not claimed a century since his 113 against Northamptonshire last May, but outscored Bopara for much of their time together.

He brushed off a nasty blow to the side of his helmet from a Boyd Rankin bouncer by hooking Rikki Clarke for the four that took him to a 159-ball century. By the time he was caught at wide mid-on by a tumbling Keith Barker for 121, he had faced 182 balls and hit 16 fours and a towering six over long-leg.

After Foster's departure, Warwickshire claimed three wickets for 32 as the Essex tail joined Bopara in adding quick runs towards the declaration.

Sunny Singh raced in from the long-on boundary to dismiss Paul Walter for a bright 16 before trapping Simon Harmer lbw.

Patel bowled Bopara to claim his fourth wicket in a marathon spell of 45 overs and season's best figures of four for 138. Neil Wagner's 25-ball cameo at the end left him 24 not out.

Bopara's fine match continued when his under-arm throw from short extra cover accounted for opener Umeed (seven) to make the first dent in Warwickshire's response.

Five overs, and three runs later, Alastair Cook snapped up Ian Westwood low down at slip to give Harmer his 20th championship wicket since the former South Africa Test spinner's arrival on a Kolpak contract in the spring.

Day one report

Nick Browne and Ravi Bopara posted their highest scores in this season's Specsavers County Championship as Essex reached 263 for five against Warwickshire in the Chelmsford heat.

Browne batted for five hours 12 minutes in grinding out a 244-ball 84, while Bopara gave his partner a 160-minute lead yet was within only 13 runs of him when Browne departed. The former England man closed on an unbeaten 84.

The pair were together for 42 overs in the middle of a cloudless day, sharing in a 127-run stand for the fourth wicket which helped Essex to reach 263 for five at the end of the opening day of the Division One contest.

Browne's innings was largely uneventful as he passed the 77 he scored in the second innings against Surrey 10 days ago. In contrast, Bopara looked more dynamic in overhauling the 64 he recorded in the first innings at Guildford.

That Essex managed just 263 runs from a full 96-over day highlights what a day for painstaking run-scoring it was. The first 50 came up in the 23rd over, the score was 100 for three in the 46th and 150 for three in the 59th. It was just 217 for three when the new ball was taken after 80 overs.

Rikki Clarke took two quick wickets with the second cherry to peg Essex when they were threatening to build a huge total and inflict a fourth innings defeat of the season on the visitors.

Essex were obdurate from the start after electing to bat on the same strip which saw 743 runs and 10 wickets in Friday's Royal London Cup semi-final.

The first hour and a half was uninspiring, then Jeetan Patel was introduced at the Hayes Close End.

With the final ball of Patel's third over, Alastair Cook thrust a leg down the wicket to kill the spin and was rapped on the pad, ending his contribution to a first-wicket stand.

Cook had been the more forthright of the openers - Browne took 47 balls to reach double-figures - and started the scoreboard moving from the 23rd ball of the day with a glorious off-drive for four.

When the former England captain was out for 39 from 64 balls, he had added another three boundaries.

Tom Westley had just swept Patel for four when he played forward and got a decisive edge to be held at slip by Clarke.

Browne was almost added to Patel's scalps soon after lunch when a forward prod just eluded Sam Hain at short leg.

Patel had a three-over breather after bowling unchanged for 11 overs with figures of two for 28, then Varun Chopra was bowled for 14 after leaving a straightish Boyd Rankin delivery.

Browne reached his half-century from 161 balls and his first real show of aggression came 220 balls into his innings when he took several strides down the pitch and smashed Patel through mid-on for his sixth four.

Browne's seventh boundary, driven through the covers off Sunny Singh, brought up the 100 partnership in 35 overs and he swept another four off the next ball to bring up Essex's 200 in the 77th over.

Bopara then took advantage of a full-toss by Singh to go past his previous highest Championship score of the season, before Browne's innings ended when he was beaten for pace by Clarke and was bowled.

Clarke claimed a second victim soon after when he had Ryan ten Doeschate almost doubled up by a delivery that came back to leave him lbw for four.