David Masters has Leicestershire on the ropes against Essex

Slowly and surely, for a period arguably a little too slowly and surely, Essex batted themselves into what should be a winning position on Tuesday. They lead by 354, and for all that the pitch is still playing reasonably well, will surely declare overnight to give themselves the best chance of taking the points they need to continue the climb up the Division Two table begun by their victory over Northants two weeks ago. Given how poorly Leicestershire played the young leg-spinner Tom Craddock in their first innings, the odds appear to be strongly in their favour. It was very much Essex's day with ball as well as bat. Leicestershire resumed 77 behind on first innings, with three wickets remaining: had the tail wagged, the game would still have been very much in the balance. That it did not was down to David Masters, the former Kent seamer who has pretty much carried the Essex attack this season. Not that he had to produce anything particularly special: Claude Henderson felt it incumbent upon himself to poke nervously at a wildish delivery to give Owais Shah catching practice at first slip, Tom New threatened to hang around before getting a half-tracker delivery which stayed horribly low, and Harry Gurney edged another wide delivery to the wicketkeeper. They all count, however, and Masters's final figures of 5-67 took him to 45 championship victims this season: no other Essex bowler has passed 20. The incompetence of the Leicestershire batsmen was more than matched by that of their bowlers. Gurney's first ball stung the hands of Will Jefferson at second slip, and three of the next four were happily hit for boundaries by Tom Westley. The young opener, back with his county after finishing his degree at Durham University, went on to hit nine boundaries in going to a third half-century in five championship innings, but must have been disappointed with the manner of his dismissal, bowled by Gurney on the back foot to a length delivery that swung a little. Billy Godleman had been playing calmly, however, and joined by Shah, continued to pick off the bad balls bowled with such depressing frequency by Nadeem Malik and Wayne White, as well as Gurney. If their batting before tea lacked urgency – only 99 runs were scored off 34 overs – both picked up the pace afterwards. It was understandable that Godleman would slow a little as his century approached: it was his first for Essex since the beginning of last season, and the former Middlesex player went on to reach a career best 130 before falling leg- before to Jigger Naik.