JAMIE PORTER wants to be the man who leads Essex to County Championship glory, after he rediscovered his form at the right time.

The pace man goes into today’s County Championship game against Worcestershire at Chelmsford needing one more wicket to reach 50 for a second successive season, having posted career-best match figures of 8-99 in the last outing at Leicester.

With three games to play, Essex need a fired-up Porter to take centre stage again and help see them over the line to secure the one promotion spot to Division One.

“That’s what you want,” Porter agreed, “especially with us on the verge of winning the Championship. These are the times when you want to be the man leading the charge – and hopefully I can be that man.

“Equally, as long as I’m chipping away and doing my role – which is taking wickets up top with the new-ball and coming back and at least holding up an end through the middle – then I’ve got no worries because I know we will get wickets at the other end.”

Porter took 22 wickets in the opening three games, but required eight matches to take the next 19 before he put Leicestershire to the sword last week with four wickets in each innings.

And Porter does not blame a mid-season, three-week break with heel and shin injuries for his alarming dip.

“I wouldn’t use any of that as an excuse as to why my foot came off the gas a little bit,” he said.

“I think it was maybe a bit of fatigue, maybe to be brutally honest I got a little sloppy with some of my gym work and recovery and didn’t take care of my body the way I had been.

“That’s one of the things I’ve reflected on and made sure I’ve become more disciplined within the last month or so. Hopefully that is why I’ve started to bowl the way I want to bowl again.

“I didn’t take it as seriously as I did at the start of the season. It meant I wasn’t able to back it up spell after spell. I have really made sure I’ve come back harder over the last three or four weeks and tried to take control of it.”