Gloucestershire v Essex, County Championship, Day 3 of 4

Nasser Hussain still finds run eluding him but he shared the joy of his Essex team as they thrashed Gloucestershire by 109 runs at Bristol.

On a wicket where the bounce became more variable as the third day wore on they shot the home side out for 85 in two and a quarter hours.

If it shook Gloucestershire almost on the eve of their Benson & Hedges Cup final with Glamorgan at Lord's the win, the second in succession, was no surprise to Essex's Ronnie Irani.

"With the new ball we could end it in the evening session and when the early wickets fell we knew we would even without claiming the extra half hour" he said.

For Gloucestershire's part having bowled Essex out the second time for 1999 with Jon Lewis returning six for 47 they believed the victory could be theirs.

But by the end of the 18th over they had crashed to 39 for five with the seam attack of Mark Ilott, Irani and Ashley Cowan finding some balls bouncing on the tinder dry surface and others shooting through low.

All this was largely academic for Hussain who had elected to play in this second division match in a bid to find batting form after his failures against Zimbabwe in the previous test.

Out for three in the first innings he fared even worse in the second falling to his fifth ball for a duck. After varying all the balls he received Lewis dug in a faster one quite short. The England captain swayed away but the ball shot off the top of the bat to wicket keeper Reggie Williams for the most important of the five catches he held in the match.

The wicket was already showing signs of uneven bounce and only Paul Grayson of the top Essex order played it with any real confidence, defending and waiting for the one to hit.

It explained the nine fours in his 52 before he was undone just before lunch by Mark Hardinges, a 22-year-old seamer from Bath University, bowled by one that kept low.

In the first over after the break Hardinges followed this by having Irani caught in the slips for 42 with the score still on 127.

With six wickets down Essex now relied on the commonsense of Darren Robinson who faced 124 balls for an unbeaten 32 and then a late heave from Cowan - a six and three fours in a quick 21 - to give them the right platform.

The home side shed wickets rapidly with only three of them, headed by Tim Hancock, getting into double figures. Opener Hancock top scored with 26 and was left shaking his head in disbelief when a leg before shout went against him.

Gloucestershire's New Zealand coach John Bracewell claimed: "We lost this one in the first innings when we failed to take a lead of 100 runs but I pledge this result, bad as it was, will have no bearing on the cup final. The lads have always showed they can raise their game in the one dayers."

While Irani finished with 3-30 off 11 overs the celebrations were all for Danny Law. He came on late in the second innings with his seamers and wrapped up the win in 4.4 overs with four wickets at a cost of just 15 runs.