Doughty batting from Ravi Bopara and Graham Napier, plus a few hours of London drizzle, thoroughly spoilt Middlesex's victory ambitions at HQ on Friday.

After beginning the day in huge trouble at 95-8, the visitors were grateful Bopara (48) and Napier (44) gathered nearly half their team's runs in a 79-run stand for the ninth wicket.

We've got to try and bat out the day tomorrow which is disappointing as it doesn't give us a chance to win Essex coach Graham Gooch

Eventually, the follow-on did arrive when Ashley Noffke dismissed Napier and Bopara was brilliantly run out by Chad Keegan.

Bopara, aged 18, had equalled his best-ever score in first-class cricket and may now be allowed to bat above James Foster in the Essex batting line-up.

But after Darren Robinson and Will Jefferson had seen off the first five overs of Essex's second innings, the rain that arrived at lunch ruled out any further play from then on.

Middlesex: A J Strauss (Capt), S G Koenig, O A Shah, D C Nash, E C Joyce, Abdul Razzaq, P N Weekes, B L Hutton, S J Cook A A Noffke, C B Keegan.

Essex: D D J Robinson, W I Jefferson, A P Grayson (Capt), A Flower, A Habib, J S Foster, R S Bopara, J M Dakin, J D Middlebrook, G R Napier, S A Brant.