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Essex County Cricket Club in 2005 are playing their cricket in Division Two of the County Championship and Division One of the Sunday League. They started the season 8-1 to win the Second Division Title, and as possible promotion contenders.
Essex Eagles Ground |
Their first first-class game of the season was a poor performance, just scraping by with a four wicket win against Cambridge UCCE. The first County Championship game was against Yorkshire, which was won easily. Then there was a rain-affected win in the Sunday League against Hampshire and a mid-week game against Glamorgan, which was abandoned as a "no result" without a ball being bowled.
Essex then beat Somerset convincingly in the Championship, before drawing in an extraordinary game against Northamptonshire. The return game against Glamorgan was won by five wickets. On 17 May they were eliminated from the C&G Trophy at the second round stage at Old Trafford. There then followed two games in the Championship: a defeat against Worcestershire and a draw with Yorkshire, which left them third in the table behind Durham and Yorkshire at the end of May.
June started with a draw in the Championship against Derbyshire, before winning a nail-biter against Middlesex at Lord's. Then, they whimpered to an innings defeat at Durham, before recovering to take a massive win over Gloucestershire thanks to a century from Andy Flower, and a 39-run win at Worcestershire followed. In the Twenty20 Cup, Essex made one win and one loss against Sussex, interspersed with a win over Kent. Rainy weather in the South Division meant that five teams were challenging for the places, and Essex were one of them, looking strong after beating Surrey in a five-over match at Chelmsford, by a solitary run. However, against a Kent side without a win so far in the Twenty20 Cup, they lost by five runs, and that shock result sent Essex out of the quarter-finals.
However, in the National League was team was going from strength to strength. Topping the league before the interval, Essex continued with victories over Northamptonshire and Lancashire to open up a eight-point gap at the top of the table, being undefeated after nine of sixteen games. To add to that, they beat Northamptonshire by ten wickets in the County Championship, ensuring they were still only three points off the third and last promotion spot.
After their win over Lancashire, they stayed in the North, drawing their County Championship match with the Lancastrians, and then travelled to Grace Road to draw a match with Leicestershire - their sixth draw of the season, which left them three points adrift of the promotion places, having played a game more than the third-placed Lancashire side. They did manage to beat league leaders Durham, though, which tightened up the Division Two title battle. Middlesex visited Southend on Sunday, and Essex won a closely-fought game by two runs, which virtually secured them the National League title, although a 60-run loss to Gloucestershire put some excitement back into it. The team then came back from a 120-run first innings deficit to beat Derbyshire in Derby, which sent them into second place in the Division Two table.
A no-result in the National League extended their lead to ten points with four games remaining, before they declared their way out of the rain-hit match with Somerset and lost by five wickets. The next day, they won the National League win over Hampshire Hawks to take their first major trophy since winning the Natwest Trophy in 1997.
September started with a two-day draw with Australia, before they beat Lancashire by 55 runs in the National League. Lancashire came back in the Championship, though, denting Essex' promotion hopes as Lancashire ran out victorious inside three days. In fact, that came to be crucial, as Yorkshire finalised their draw with Derbyshire on 19 September to send Essex out of contention. Essex had to be content with a National League victory, cementing the already confirmed victory with a win over Worcestershire, and a Championship draw with Worcestershire and a seven-wicket League win over Northamptonshire rounded off the season.