If ever anyone doubted the unpredictable nature of one-day cricket, they should have been at Chelmsford yesterday to witness Essex’s dramatic deterioration at the hands of Adam Hollioake and Surrey.

While in international circles the name of the Lions’ captain continues to be overlooked, Hollioake was largely responsible for another Surrey fight back - their second close call in the space of a week. But even the most positive of positive thinkers, of which Adam is one, would have been reluctant to give the visitors any hope with thirteen overs to go when the Eagles, five wickets in hand, needed just 18 more to win.

In little more than half an hour, as the headline writers replaced ‘Irani and Grayson see Essex home’ with ‘Essex scrape past Surrey’, only to put a line through that as well, the home side lost their last five wickets for fifteen runs in the space of just 32 balls.

It all began with Adam Hollioake’s first delivery, a short one outside off stump, which saw Paul Grayson wafting and caught behind. The burly Jon Dakin opened his account with a fierce extra cover drive, but as Hollioake resorted to pitching the ball shorter and shorter, the tall left-hander chased one in frustration and was caught down the leg side.

Graham Napier drove his first delivery to the cover boundary, but then stood by as Mark Pettini, trying to force the ball to leg, was bowled by Ed Giddins, Ashley Cowan was yorked by one arrowed in on off stump two overs later and Joe Grant was hit on the toe, first ball, by the Surrey skipper.

As children ran on to the pitch in search of an autograph or two, the entire Lions team formed to make an eleven-man ‘bouncy castle’. Earlier this season unified in grief, now they were unified in jubilant victory.

Having celebrated winning the County Championship 24 hours earlier, they then received further good news upon returning to the dressing room. Due to results elsewhere and with the Eagles away to the Northamptonshire Steelbacks next weekend, the result had also confirmed Surrey’s promotion to Division One of the Norwich Union League.

It was hard on Joe Grant that the end came with his dismissal. Nobody had done more to hand a victory to Essex. The 34-year-old who, when not playing for the Eagles, works nights at Tesco’s, captured the wickets of Nadeem Shahid, Martin Bicknell and Jonathan Batty after pulling off catches at mid-on to account for both Rikki Clarke and Adam Hollioake.

Surrey, who were bowled out for the sixth time in this season’s Norwich Union League, were indebted to a fifth wicket partnership of 40 in 27 balls between Shahid and Hollioake as well as Saqlain Mushtaq’s eleventh-hour contribution - a top score of 28 in 40 deliveries - which hoisted the visitors’ total above 150.

Cowan, who was used in three spells, finished with four for 16 - his best one-day performance of the summer. Thanks to him the visitors only found the boundary four times in the first 17 overs, during which they lost Alistair Brown, caught at point, Ian Ward, who chopped a rising delivery on to the top of middle stump plus Clarke who, after being called-up for the ICC Champions Trophy, was potentially playing his last game of the season.

The writing appeared to be on the wall soon after Will Jefferson was dropped at second slip by Adam Hollioake, that after Darren Robinson had gone down the pitch to Bicknell and played inside a straight delivery and the Surrey captain had taken a brilliant catch, effectively at third slip, to see the back of John Stephenson off the bowling of Giddins.

Jefferson then square drove the unlucky Martin Bicknell to the boundary and in the next over, the twelfth, Essex passed fifty when Andy Flower glanced the four runs that also took him past the 500-mark in this season’s Norwich Union League.

Flower and Jefferson went in the space of four deliveries, the Zimbabwean to a chance at slip and the tall 22-year-old to a catch behind, after which Ronnie Irani and Paul Grayson overcame the threat of the turning ball and then, it seemed, set their side on course for victory with a fifth wicket partnership worth 74 in fourteen overs.

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