The harder that Essex toil to keep pace in this title race, the further adrift of Surrey’s rampant frontrunners they seem to end up being. Barely 15 minutes were on the clock at Chelmsford when word drifted up the A12 that Warwickshire had lost their third wicket of the morning to slump to a dismal innings defeat at the Kia Oval – by which stage Essex too were back in the pavilion, courtesy of Josh De Caires’ eighth wicket of their first innings – leaving them all out for 304, and with a net loss of one batting point on their South London rivals.

And yet, to Essex’s credit – and Jamie Porter’s in particular – they were still in there fighting for this title by the close of the second day. After a day of harder graft than might have been envisaged after Porter – not for the first time this season – had overseen the obliteration of Middlesex’s top four in the space of his first four overs, Essex strolled through to the close with a lead of 229 and nine wickets intact, courtesy of Alastair Cook’s unbeaten 44, his second substantial knock of the match.

With the sun set to blaze for two more days and this used pitch likely to get dustier even if it has eased out for now, there’s no reason to believe that Essex won’t be leaving this contest with a 21-point haul under their belts, to keep their challenge mathematically alive – at least until Surrey have seen off the relegation-bound Northamptonshire in their next home fixture in a fortnight’s time. More’s the pity that the lop-sided scheduling in the top flight has denied us a return clash of the top two, after Surrey were forced to cling on for a feisty draw on this ground back in May.

Still, Essex aren’t done with the scrapping just yet. There’s so much residual excellence within this red-ball set-up that, on a rare off-day for Simon Harmer – their most obvious weapon in light of De Caires’ impact, but restricted on this occasion to a solitary wicket in the deep – their standards were maintained instead by their other pair of Old Faithfuls, Porter and Sam Cook, with a combined analysis of 9 for 80 in 22.5 overs.

Porter emerged with the lion’s share of that haul – 6 for 34 in 12.5, his best figures of the season … by one run, after his 6 for 35 had routed Middlesex in their previous meeting at Lord’s in April’s season opener. On that occasion, the top four had contributed not a single run to a ghastly scoreline of 4 for 4, and so today’s collapse to 25 for 4 was comparative riches.

The division of labour, however, was all too familiar for a put-upon batting line-up – three for Porter, one for Cook, and scarcely a moment’s let-up between them. Mark Stoneman was the first to go, driving loosely on the up to pick out Paul Walter in the covers, whereupon Joe Cracknell – playing his second Championship fixture and his first in two years – was followed by a fourth-ball inducker that Harmer scooped up at second slip.

Three overs later, Porter had his and Essex’s third – and the best of the innings – as Sam Robson played down the wrong line of a perfect seaming delivery that straightened around his outside edge to flatten his off stump. And three balls after that, Cook – aiming full and threatening from round the wicket – pinned a tentative Jack Davies on the shin as he failed to commit fully on the front foot, and the innings was in freefall.

The stage was set for Harmer, entering from the River End with licence to rip his offies and invite a catatonic line-up to implode. With India’s Test seamer Umesh Yadav hitting a hard length in his first spell as an Essex cricketer, Middlesex ground out a total of three runs in ten overs, including 35 consecutive dot-balls, until Max Holden denied Harmer a fifth consecutive maiden with a firm sweep through square leg.

With Holden and John Simpson just beginning to creep out of their foxholes, back came Porter from the Hayes Close End, and down went Middlesex’s fifth wicket, as Simpson was pinned on the crease for 16, albeit the impact was on the high side of leg-sided. Porter didn’t care how they came, and before his 12th over was done, he’d bagged his own fifth, as Holden’s fighting knock ended with a tame clip back to the bowler for 30. Though Ryan Higgins and De Caires displayed some panache in their respective rearguards – the latter with a ramp for four off Porter than his old man certainly didn’t teach him – Essex would not be denied in their push for a substantive125-run lead.

Porter duly delivered it by pinning Ethan Bamber lbw for 0, and in the wake of his back-to-back five-fors against Hampshire in Essex’s last Championship outing in July, he’d rushed past 50 wickets for the season too – quite the bounce-back after a fallow summer in 2022, in which his injury-plagued haul of 19 at 30.89 had left him contemplating his future as he approached his 30th birthday.

Instead, after a renewed fitness drive – aided in no small part by a winter in Melbourne alongside Essex’s Australian bowling coach Mick Lewis – Porter’s now racked up 53 at 16.92, by a distance his best season since his annus mirablis in 2017, when he powered Essex’s title charge with 85 wickets at 16.74, and earned himself a 12th-man berth in England’s Test plans against India the following summer.

Those England hopes, even Porter might accept, are long gone now – while Cook’s seem destined never to arrive in the first place, even though, at the age of 26 and with a first-class average below 20, his credentials could scarcely be more presentable. But all’s the more reason why this Essex era is of such enduring importance to this squad of players. Given all that they’ve achieved in the past six years and more, they are not quite ready to accept that their mantle of red-ball trendsetters has slipped away to the South-West.