Plunkett in the groove as Durham battle back

Essex 484 Durham 83-1

(GETTY IMAGES )

Wickets, lovely wickets. After two-and-a-half sessions and 108 overs without so much as a sniff of one, there were four of them in the space of 13 balls midway through the afternoon shift at Chester-le-Street yesterday, Durham's hitherto dawdling bowling attack making up for lost time at double the rate of London buses.

Liam Plunkett was in the driving seat for the county champions, the England seamer claiming three of the four. Unfortunately for Durham, Jaik Mickleburgh and James Foster had already taken Essex's first innings score off into the distance with their marathon fifth-innings partnership. The pair racked up 161 runs in tandem on day one and they took their tally to 339 before Mickleburgh chopped a Plunkett ball onto his wicket at 3.03pm yesterday, with the Essex score on 441 and the highly impressive 20-year-old batsman on 174.

For Mickleburgh, an England Under 19 international, it was a maiden first-class century. For the Norfolk lad and his middle-order partner, the sometime senior England wicketkeeper, it was a record-breaking alliance. Their 339 surpassed the previous best fifth-wicket Essex partnership in first-class competition: 316 by Nasser Hussain and Mike Garnham against Leicestershire in 1991. It also broke the record fifth-wicket partnership against Durham: the 332 Brian Lara garnered with Keith Piper in the course of his epic 501 knock at Edgbaston back in 1994.

The second day breakthrough came just when Durham spirits were in danger of becoming as flat as the Riverside wicket. All of a sudden, Plunkett was shaking off the winter rust and clicking into wicket-taking groove. Four balls later he trapped Ryan ten Doeschate lbw for three – before a brilliant catch at backward point by Dale Benkenstein, off Callum Thorp, brought an end to Foster's fine stint, with the former Durham University student on 169.

A Benkenstein slip catch gave Plunkett his third wicket, this time at the expense of Graham Napier, leaving Essex on 447 for 8. Plunkett later removed Tim Phillips, to finish with 4 for 112 as Essex pushed on to 484 all out – higher than any innings by a visiting side in the county championship here last season.