County Championship: Champions Surrey draw with Essex

Dom Sibley batted for more than four hours for his third century of the season before champions Surrey lifted the County Championship trophy following an attritional draw with Essex at Chelmsford.

Surrey celebrated a third straight title after a season in which they won eight of their 14 matches, but, with the exception of Sibley’s 189-ball 125, they were comprehensively second best against Essex.

Sibley dominated half-century stands with Dan Lawrence and Josh Blake before becoming the sixth man out, with Surrey still nominally 143 runs shy of making Essex bat again.

The game petered out in comedy fashion as Essex bowlers changed bowling styles before handshakes were exchanged at 16:10 BST, with Surrey 267-7.

Essex took three wickets in 10 overs in the morning to introduce a little tension to proceedings before the game meandered towards the inevitable draw.

Yousef Majid extended his nightwatchman duties by just over half-an-hour on a grey morning before he tried to play Simon Harmer to leg but popped up a catch in the opposite direction to short extra cover.

Ryan Patel was unbalanced by Jamie Porter and departed lbw, while Ben Geddes was beaten by one from Harmer that turned and jagged back his off-stump.

Sibley dominated the first 50 of the fifth-wicket stand with Lawrence amid a flurry of pushed and well-placed boundaries.

Lawrence contributed just 14 of those runs and 27 of the 75 they eventually put on before Shane Snater trapped him lbw.

Runs dried up at that point, 10 overs passing without a boundary before Sibley stroked back Sam Cook for his 14th four to reach three figures from 168 balls.

He celebrated by going down on one knee and launching Matt Critchley out of the ground over long leg for only the second six of the match.

Critchley gained a measure of revenge when Sibley drove uppishly towards mid-off where Cook took the catch, while Ollie Sykes’ debut lasted two balls before he fell to Tom Westley.

Report supplied by ECB Reporters’ Network.