Simon Harmer was the architect of a remarkable last-wicket partnership with Jamie Porter that eked out an unlikely first-innings lead for Essex in the Rothesay County Championship against Hampshire at Chelmsford.

The pair reprised their 10th-wicket heroics that salvaged an equally surreal draw against Yorkshire last season by putting on 81 runs in 21 overs to establish a 38-run advantage. Coming together at a perilous 192 for 9, 43 runs adrift, Harmer and Porter ended up just three runs short of a 96-year-old club-record stand for the last wicket against Hampshire.

All-rounder Harmer, with 80 not out from 118 balls, managed to farm the bowling so expertly that Porter, an archetypal No11, only faced 38 balls for his dozen runs as they were repeatedly able to take a single from the fifth ball of each over.

They were finally parted after the largest stand of the innings when James Fuller returned to knock over Porter’s middle stump and claim his ninth career five-wicket haul. Wiaan Mulder had earlier scored his first half-century for Essex while passing 10,000 runs in professional cricket. In 28 overs in the evening, Hampshire crept back into the black, thanks principally to Nick Gubbins’s watchful unbeaten 35, as they closed on 58 for 2, 20 runs in front.

However, in doing so the bottom-of-the-table club lost early wickets to underline their hapless start to the season, Toby Albert was dismissed with the deficit still 25 when he edged Sam Cook behind after scoring just a single from 21 deliveries. Tom Prest fell soon after to the same bowler-wicketkeeper combination, also for one.

On a more positive note, Fuller had stuck twice in his first two overs of the morning to add to his overnight wicket of Dean Elgar. Cook’s nightwatchman shift lasted just four more balls before Fuller beat him for pace and sent his off-stump cartwheeling. Without addition to the score, Fuller induced a faint tickle from Charlie Allison.

And just when Tom Westley was beginning to look settled after a thorough opening examination by Kyle Abbott, the Essex captain played a loose shot to Scott Currie and was snaffled by first slip.

Matt Critchley and Mulder put on 46 for the sixth wicket as they attempted to drag Essex back into the game that looked to be slipping away. But Abbott, who was enjoying occasional lift and bounce, got one to keep low and hit Critchley on his back pad for an lbw decision.

And just when Mulder seemed to be forming a fruitful alliance with Michael Pepper both batsmen fell in the space of eight balls. Pepper fished outside off-stump to Currie and Mulder’s near two-hour vigil for 54 runs ended when he followed one from Liam Dawson down legside.

At 157 for 8, Harmer and Shane Snater decided attack was the best option in the circumstances. Both went after Dawson with Snater hitting a four and a six over long leg from successive balls and Harmer twice finding the midwicket fence in an over.

The pair might have been parted when Harmer, on 13, was dropped at second slip by Jake Lehmann off Abbott. It was to prove costly. The ninth-wicket stand was worth 35 before Snater was strangled down legside by Fuller, though the batsman appeared unconvinced he had touched it.

It looked like Westley’s decision to bowl first on a green-tinged wicket was going to unravel. Harmer and Porter had other ideas. Refusing singles from the first four balls, and only scoring when Harmer managed to pierce a field scattered around the boundary, they kept Hampshire in the field for two-and-three-quarter hours in an elongated afternoon session.