Henry Crocombe took five wickets in 14 deliveries without conceding a run at Chelmsford on Thursday evening, and by the time Essex had stopped falling over they had lost their last seven wickets for six runs. From 171-3 and in control, they were 177 all out inside 26 balls — and the 24-year-old seamer had his second hat-trick in eight days.
Crocombe finished with 5-39, his third five-wicket haul of the summer, in a spell that turned the second day of this Rothesay County Championship Division One match on its head. Sussex, having been bowled out for 275 in the morning, closed on 90-4 in their second innings, 188 runs ahead and holding every card in the game.
Six runs, seven wickets, 26 balls
Essex had progressed serenely after tea. Charlie Allison had made a tidy 56 and the innings looked set to eat into Sussex’s total. Then Allison was trapped lbw by Crocombe, and the innings simply stopped existing.
The hat-trick came in Crocombe’s ninth over. Simon Harmer was pinned lbw with the first ball. Zaman Akhter was pinned lbw with the second. Shane Snater played over a full, straight delivery with the third and lost his leg stump.
- Essex 171-3 → 177 all out
- Crocombe: 5-39, five wickets in 14 balls, none of them conceding a run
- Hat-trick victims: Harmer (lbw), Akhter (lbw), Snater (bowled)
- Sussex lead at stumps on day two: 188
“Earlier in the day I had bowled okay. I was trying to find a decent length,” Crocombe said. “So when I came back on, I tried to focus more on getting the ball up. I just tried to get a full, straight yorker in and see what happened.”
What happened was the near-total erasure of a Division One batting line-up. The three lbws and the bowled tell the story: length up, stumps in play, no width to work with under floodlit early-September gloom.
The collapse overshadowed a landmark at the other end of the day. Jamie Porter took 4-44 in Sussex’s first innings, including his 600th first-class wicket, having earlier removed the top order. Jack Leaning’s 60 from 110 balls and Ari Karvelas’s counter-attacking 38 from 44, with six boundaries, had given Sussex something to bowl at. It turned out to be plenty.
The rarest thing in county cricket, twice
Before 27 August, Crocombe had never taken three wickets in three balls at any level of professional cricket. That evening at Hove he ran through Somerset’s tail to finish with 5-56 and bowl the title-chasing visitors out for 202 — Sussex’s first Championship hat-trick since Jason Lewry in 2001, a gap of 25 years.
Eight days later he did it again, in the next match. Hat-tricks in consecutive first-class fixtures put him in company that barely exists in the modern game; most careers of 200 wickets contain none at all.
“Getting one is amazing but the second I just can’t believe it has happened,” he said. “It all happens so quickly you can’t quite believe it. It’s good fun.”
The Somerset spell had immediate championship consequences — Somerset arrived at Hove second on 133 points, two behind Nottinghamshire, still chasing a first title in their history. This one has consequences of a different kind: Essex conceded a 98-run first-innings deficit from a position of safety and now face a fourth-innings chase on a pitch that has already produced one implosion.
A bowler Sussex are about to lose
The context that gives this fortnight its edge is that Crocombe will not be a Sussex player in 2027. He joins Surrey at the end of the season, a move driven by his home county’s financial restrictions rather than by any wish to leave — Sussex have been docked 12 points this season after entering a financial framework agreement to access exceptional ECB funding.
“I’m always going to give my all for Sussex. It’s my club. I love playing here,” he said. “They aren’t just my team-mates, they’re my mates, my friends.”
That is the uncomfortable subplot. A locally developed left-arm seamer producing the two most eye-catching bowling performances of the county summer is leaving because the club that made him cannot keep him, and the points deduction that flowed from the same balance sheet has shaped Sussex’s league position all year.
Surrey get a bowler who has learned to attack the stumps rather than hunt the edge. Sussex get, at most, one more match of him — and, on the evidence of Chelmsford, a strong chance of finishing this one inside three days.
Sources: [Yahoo Sports — Sussex’s Crocombe takes second hat-trick in eight days](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sussexs-crocombe-takes-second-hat-172303816.html), [Yahoo Sports — Crocombe makes heartfelt Sussex statement after hat-trick](https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/crocombe-makes-heartfelt-sussex-statement-221522354.html), [Brighton and Hove News — Crocombe takes hat-trick against Somerset at Hove](https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2026/08/27/crocombe-takes-hat-trick-for-sussex-on-day-one-against-somerset-at-hove/), [ESPNcricinfo — Essex v Sussex, 51st Match, Chelmsford](https://www.cricinfo.com/series/county-championship-division-one-2026-1513323/essex-vs-sussex-51st-match-1513376/full-scorecard), [ESPNcricinfo — Division One 2026 points table](https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/county-championship-division-one-2026-1513323/points-table-standings)
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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