'You can't live on burgers and chips' - A fan view on the floodlit Championship

Essex 298 for 4 (Cook 96, Browne 66) v Somerset
Scorecard

The sun refuses to set on day/night cricket in England, however much a grumbling Chelmsford crowd may wish it to, in no small part owing to it being played in midsummer.

On a scorching hot, blue-sky, ice-cream and sunblock day, the sort of day which is supposed to attract hordes of late arrivals bunking off work early to enjoy a reviving ice-cold beer or simply ambling by and thinking "what the hell", there were fewer people present to watch Alastair Cook and Essex's return to batting form than you'd expect at a good old-fashioned run of the mill red ball game in mid-April.

There are reasons; it was a Monday, many of the home fans live a good drive away from the ground, and the lure of the World Cup is stronger than the novelty of a pink ball. It might help if the pink ball in question, a Kookaburra for Division One matches, didn't show less inclination to swing than Odysseus' virtuous wife Penelope. Indeed, the seam on these balls unthreads more rapidly than her tapestries.

It might help, but really not a lot. Alan, an Essex member of decades' standing, ran through the myriad objections: "Most of the members are getting on. They don't want to queue in the car park at 9.30, waiting to drive home 20 miles. Then you don't feel like eating because it's too late, and you can't live on a diet of burgers and chips which is all I can get here."

What about the walk-in crowd? Well, Chelmsford isn't The Oval. You're not likely to stop your journey back home from work (which as often as not will be in London), traipse 10 minutes to the ground to arrive at around 6.30pm only to contemplate the remaining half hour (at least) of your journey starting at 9.15pm. On a Monday. With a World Cup going on.

And then there's the spectacle. Day/night cricket can be a wondrous spectacle in Australia, India, pretty much everywhere else in the cricketing firmament . A jet black sky, the lights on full beam, the ball misbehaving in that exotic final session. If, though, you insist on playing it in midsummer in England, it's hard to know why they don't just stick to the red ball. The spectacle never appears. The crepuscular hour falls and casts its magically spectral light on a crowd that has by now decamped to the train station or pub. But if you play it much later in the season, it gets bloody cold by 9pm.

Is it just possible that England is not Australia. It is not India. Is it possible that England needs to tailor cricket to England and English conditions, rather than creating a bastard hybrid of what works abroad. In countries closer to the equator. Countries that get dark earlier and are warm? Because if day/night cricket wasn't going to work today of all days, it's hard to know exactly when it will. Under a heated, roofed, megadome in central London?

All of which is a shame since what many locals missed was a fighting day of good quality cricket from two teams on whom the sun actually is threatening to set on their title ambitions after heavy defeats last week. Essex finally rediscovered some form with the bat thanks to an opening partnership of 151 between the returning Nick Browne (out since early May with a broken finger) and Alastair Cook. It was Essex's largest partnership of the season by 41 runs, and was only ended when Tim Groenewald deflected Cook's firmly struck straight drive onto the stumps at the non-striker's end, stranding Browne (66) a couple of feet out of his ground.

Somerset, spearheaded by Dom Bess, who bowled unchanged for 35 overs, dragged back the scoring rate on a dry first day pitch that will surely assist Harmer later in the game. Somerset chipped away with wickets at regular intervals in the middle session, including that of Cook whom Bess trapped lbw four runs short of his 63rd first-class hundred, and we got a first sight of Michael Pepper , debuting on his 20th birthday. A six foot three inch wicket keeper batsmen who is much admired by local legend Robin Hobbs, he survived a spicy spell from Jamie Overton who repeatedly tested him with the short ball either side of tea, but he couldn't survive Bess's arm ball, playing down the wrong line as it cannoned into his off stump.

At 212 for 4 Essex were in danger of succumbing to familiar frailties but were seen home by an unbroken partnership of 86 between their old stagers Ravi Bopara (37) and Ryan ten Doeschate (46) to finish on 298 for 4, just four runs short of their highest first innings score this season, with power to add.

Sadly, a crowd of 1202, roughly half the average attendance at Chelmsford this season, was there to see it.