Dom Sibley batted for more than four hours for his third century of the season as Surrey lifted the Vitality County Championship trophy after the two teams shook hands for a draw at Chelmsford.
Surrey savoured the celebrations for the third successive year after a season in which they won eight of their 14 matches. Sibley’s 189-ball 125, helped the Three Feathers reach 267-7 in reply to Essex’s 508-8 declared.
Sibley’s innings was a mixture of forcefulness, chiefly through the covers, and watchfulness as he dominated half-century stands with Dan Lawrence and Josh Blake before he was sixth man out with Surrey still nominally 143 runs shy of making Essex bat again.
The finale to the Championship season petered out in the evening session before handshakes were exchanged at 4.10pm.
Essex had taken three wickets in 10 overs in the morning to introduce a little frisson to proceedings, but the game meandered towards the draw that had been inevitable since rain washed out all but 111 minutes’ play on the first two days. The draw meant Essex finished fourth, two points behind one-time title contenders Somerset.
Yousef Majid extended his nightwatch duties by just over half-an-hour on a cold, grey morning before he tried to play Harmer to leg but popped up a catch in the opposite direction to short extra cover.
Jamie Porter’s sequence of four successful maidens was broken when Sibley drove him straight back so fiercely it almost cut the bowler in half on its way to the boundary. He was equally aggressive against Harmer, coming down the wicket and swiping him past midwicket for another of his 17 fours.
Ryan Patel had already been missed at slip by Ben Allison, fielding in place of the injured Dean Elgar, before he was unbalanced by Porter and departed lbw. Ben Geddes did not last long, beaten by one from Harmer that turned and jagged back his off-stump.
Sibley dominated the first fifty of the fifth-wicket stand with Dan Lawrence amid a flurry of pushed and well-placed boundaries. Lawrence contributed just 14 of them, and 27 of the 75 runs they eventually put on before Shane Snater trapped him lbw.
Runs dried up at that point: seven came off 43 balls and 10 overs passed 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.
However, Critchley gained a measure of revenge when Sibley drove uppishly towards mid-off where Cook took the catch. Harmer was eventually rested and his replacement, Tom Westley, struck with his sixth ball as Ollie Sykes was bowled without scoring.
Tom Lawes (33*) and Blake (38*) added 49 runs for the eighth wicket before the two teams shook hands, with the trophy handed over to Rory Burns by ECB chairman Richard Thompson shortly after.
