LIFE is going so quickly for Essex pace man Jamie Porter that he barely has time to celebrate birthdays.

Porter spent his 23rd birthday in the field in Cardiff on Wednesday and then had a long journey home after the drawn match with Glamorgan kept Essex top of County Championship Division Two.

And if he had plans to paint the town red since then, that will have been curtailed as he prepares for Essex’s next fixture at Northamptonshire, starting tomorrow.

That game will bring about a quick reintroduction to opponents against whom Porter recorded a career-best 5-46, and match figures of 8-101, a month ago. With 28 Championship wickets already this summer, he needs just six more to reach 100 in first-class cricket, and would like to get there as soon as possible.

Essex beat Northants by an innings at Chelmsford after an incredible half-hour spell before lunch on day three in which the visitors were reduced to 6-4, soon to be 14-5, by the new-ball attack of Porter and David Masters.

“We’re quite big on saying we’ve got a crazy session in us,” said Porter. “We’ve had so many sessions in the last couple of years where we’ve just blasted teams out. That’s what happened against Northants. They played a few loose shots early on which got us going.

“The great thing about bowling with David Masters at the other end is that he doesn’t really give them anything. That helped because it meant that all I had to do was make it tough for them to score at my end. They were going to have to go searching for runs off good balls.

“I think it is a good time for us to play them again because what happened at our place will still be quite fresh in their minds. We can use that to our advantage.”

Porter has come a long way in the two years since his 21st birthday. That was the day he took the call to play for Essex seconds against Gloucestershire. After two three-wicket hauls in the match he was hardly looked back. He quit his job as a recruitment consultant to go on a season’s trial and was offered a two-year contract just before making his first-team debut in September 2014.

Not that the former Chingford bowler is allowing the grass to grow under his feet. He revealed: “I want to play for England – and do it as soon as possible. I feel at the moment I’ve probably got a fair way to go on that journey, but that is what I am working towards. I want to play Test cricket for England. That will be a dream come true.”