Bears roar to title on final day

Warwickshire clinched the LV= Insurance County Championship after defeating Somerset by 118 runs on a raucous ‘I was there’ afternoon for their fans at Edgbaston.

The Bears began the final day knowing that victory would secure their first title since 2012 and the eighth in their history – and their plans came together perfectly.

First they added 115 runs in just over an hour to race to 294 for three as Rob Yates scored a brilliant 132 not out, with enterprising support from Will Rhodes (62 off 44 balls) and Matt Lamb (27 not out off 20).

That enabled a bold declaration from Rhodes, who set Somerset

273 in 79 overs and then watched with delight as his team bowled and caught superbly to rattle their opponents out for 154 on a good batting pitch.

It was the third home game this season which Warwickshire had won after tea on the final day.

That is testament to their fighting spirit as well as their skill, and those attributes were needed on the final afternoon when they had to prise 10 wickets from a batter-friendly surface.

Hampshire would have won the title, by just half a point, had they taken the final Lancashire wicket on Thursday. As it was, with Notts beating Yorkshire, they finished fourth in the six-team top flight.

Notts completed a five-wicket victory yesterday but ultimately missed out on the Bob Willis Trophy final.

After wrapping up their own match seven overs into the afternoon session, they were left waiting for the outcome of Warwickshire’s match against Somerset, but the Bears’ victory ensured it would be them and Lancashire to contest the end-ofseason Lord’s final.

Nottinghamshire finished third, just half a point adrift of Lancashire in second and four behind champions Warwickshire.

Notts would be heading to Lord’s themselves if they had not fallen four runs short of a third batting point here when they were bowled out for 296 in their first innings, having needed only 18 more runs with three wickets in hand.

But it would be simplistic to blame their lower-order batsmen in this match for missing out on the prize.

Bigger factors were their defeats home and away to Warwickshire in the group phase of the season, which meant they carried forward only five points from those matches into the divisional stage, compared with Warwickshire’s 21.

And while they started the divisional stage with handsome wins over Somerset and Lancashire,

a heavy defeat at Hampshire at Southampton left them needing other results to go in their favour in this week’s final round.