Essex made heavy weather of scoring the 30 runs required to beat Kent by seven wickets and secure their fourth successive LV= Insurance County Championship victory.

  It needed Paul Walter to keep his head when others around him were losing theirs and stroke the winning runs 23 balls into what turned into a more difficult run chase than necessary.

  Essex attempted to make light work of reaching the target and were halfway there from the first over bowled by Hamid Qadri. But that was the prelude to the drama.

  Dan Lawrence was first to go when he tried to hit Grant Stewart’s first ball out of the ground but only skied to mid-on.

  Adam Rossington followed in the next over, lbw attempting to reverse sweep Qadri, and first-innings centurion Matt Critchley departed first ball to a caught-and-bowled by the offspinner, taken running back and over his head at mid-on.

  That was 23-3 in the third over, but Essex managed to get over the line in the next over to take 21 points and keep up the pressure on Championship leaders Surrey.

  Earlier in the morning, Essex needed eight overs before breaking the stubborn overnight partnership, but once Qadri departed to a smart catch at short square leg by Simon Harmer the innings collapsed in just six balls.

  Sam Cook added a second of the morning three balls later when Matt Quinn played on and Joey Evison fell lbw to the first ball of Harmer’s 44th over of the innings. Harmer finished with four for 72 to take his season’s tally to 41 wickets and Cook had figures of four for 46.

Essex captain Tom Westley said: “It’s very satisfying to get our fourth consecutive win. I thought as a bowling unit we stuck at it brilliantly yesterday on what was a fairly placid wicket. It was spinning but not how it can traditionally spin here.

  “I think the number of overs that Simon Harmer bowled and got his rewards was outstanding but as a bowling unit and trying loads of different options and setting  different fields, I thought the guys stuck at it  really well.

  “It would have been nice if we could have not lost any wickets at the end and wrapped up the win in a couple of overs which was the plan, at least that was what Dan (Lawrence) and Rosso (Adam (Rossington) were saying.

  “We were mindful that there was a bit of bad weather around and that it was on the radar. Sometimes in short chases, if you try and bat properly you can lose wickets and get into a bit of a hole but we got over the line with a win and that’s the main thing. 

  “All we can do from here is to focus on our own results, keep winning and keep the pressure on Surrey. I think if you try to look too far ahead, you can get yourself into a bit of trouble so we’ll just take it game by game and see where that takes us at the end of the season.

  “We’ve got Hampshire next and we’ll go there with plenty of confidence. We’ve had a lot of battles with Hampshire over the past few years and they are always there or thereabouts in the Championship. We know what a dangerous team they can be.

  “They’ve got some world-class players as have we so hopefully, it will be a really good game of cricket down there.”

Kent head coach Matt Walker said: “It’s been déjà vu, I suppose. Days two and three I thought we showed some good character, our skill levels, a bit of fight, but yet again day one has cost us. I thought it was a pretty good cricket wicket, it looked a bit ugly at the start but I thought it played really well and produced a good game of cricket. It was good to bat on, that is why they wanted to bat first.

  “It was a good toss to win. But just over 200 is well short of being competitive against a side like Essex. You know you’ve got to post a pretty significant score to be in the fight. So again we were well short of first-innings runs.

  “It’s the same old, same old. I can’t really say any more to you than I’ve said in the past. It’s just that lack of a big partnership, a hundred in the bank. They showed us how to do it. They batted brilliantly, took their time, were patient. They got those partnerships, a hundred for Critchley and a 250 lead is difficult to deal with. Had we been a little closer to that score I think it would have been a very interesting game.

  “But being bowled out inside 60 overs isn’t good enough, unfortunately. That has to change as we move forward. We’ve said in the dressing room for the past few weeks that we’ve got to be better in our first-innings batting.

  “But there are some positives: how we batted yesterday, all day, that is what you want earlier on in the game. We showed we can do it, and in conditions when the ball was spinning more. I thought Finchy batted brilliantly and showed how to go about it and Joey Evison and Compo showed some resolve, some real concentration and decision-making.

  “But in and around it there were a lot of low scores and we need to do something it and post 450 ourselves. It kills you when you start the game off with all the right intentions and the right energy and walk off on day one and know you’re pretty heavily behind on the day.

  “It is when they walk across the white line that things have got to get better. They practise well enough, they’re very diligent in their prep, but they need to switch on when they cross the white line. We need to educate those players and keep banging the drum that this is hard work.”