Warwickshire draw with Durham

After rain held up play between Warwickshire and Durham at Edgbaston on the fourth day, the match was finally abandoned as a draw

 

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Durham 10 points Warwickshire 6 points

DAY 4 

No play was possible at Edgbaston on the final day due to persistant rain and the match was abandoned as a draw

DAY 3

Warwickshire’s recent batting problems were highlighted by another disappointing performance on the third morning as Durham took nine wickets in the session, bowling the Bears out before lunch, for exactly 100, trailing by 279 runs on first innings.
The opening bowlers, Rushworth and Claydon ripped through the top order in the opening hour as Westwood 16, Chopra 1, Troughton 1, Clarke 5 and Johnson 9 all went while Durham surrounded the Bears’ batsmen.
Night watchman, Andy Miller 35, passed his previous highest first-class total but after hitting Blackwell for a six and a four, was bowled trying another big shot.
The remainder of the innings fell away quickly as Plunkett removed Woakes, Botha and Imran and immediately with a first innings lead of 279 Durham skipper Mustard enforced the follow-on.
There was time for just one over before the lunch break when Warwickshire were 0-0

Darren Maddy 16 was first to go after lunch, lbw to Claydon and when Scott Borthwick was introduced into the attack and took the wickets of Chopra 6 and Troughton 9, in quick succession, Warwickshire had slipped to 62-3.

An unbeaten partnership of sixty three between Westwood 49* and Clarke 30* took the Bears to tea on 125-3 still trailing by one hundred and fifty four runs.

After tea, both men completed their half centuries and completed a century fourth wicket partnership, before Blackwell produced a quicker delivery to Clarke and picked up his wicket, lbw for sixty six.

Skipper Ian Westwood was determined that the Bears would not repeat their woeful first innings batting performace and now partnered by Richard Johnson, took his side to the close of the third day without further loss, closing on 229-4 still fifty runs in arrears, but Westwood 86* and Johnson 20* will be together to resume their unbroken fifth wicket partnership of fifty three on the fourth and final morning.
 

 

DAY 2

Mark Stoneman and Gordon Muchall took their partnership on to one hundred and fifty three on the second morning, with both men completing half-centuries, before Imran trapped Muchall 60 bang in front with a top spinner and then had Stoneman smartly stumped by Johnson, his first first-class stumping, for seventy seven.

Ian Blackwell came and went before the break without scoring again to Imran, as Durham lunched on 176-4

Ian Westwood continued to bowl Botha and Imran in tandem throughout much of the afternoon session, with Imran collecting three more wickets as Stokes 16 skyed a drive to Troughton, Benkenstein 26 went back and a low delivery trapped him lbw in front.

In the same over Borthwick pulled a long hop straight to Barker for a duck, to give Imran his sixth wicket of the day, but Durham dug in with skipper Phil Mustard and Liam Plunkett adding forty nine runs in an unbeaten eighth wicket partnership to go to tea on 284-7.

After tea, Imran bowled Plunkett for forty one and Ant Botha collected his first wicket of the season when Claydon was lbw to give Warwickshire their third bowling point.

Phil Mustard took on the bowling with just one wicket in hand and reached the third century of his career before being taken on the boundary by Westwood to close the Durham innings on 379.

Imran Tahir finished with figures of 8-114

When the Bears began their reply, Darren Maddy went in the first over, caught at fine-leg by Rushworth without scoring and Andy Miller as nightwatchman played out the remainder of the day with Ian Westwood as Warwickshire closed the day on 18-1

DAY 1

With the start of play delayed for almost five hours at Edgbaston on the opening day, Durham elected to bat first after winning the toss and lost De Venuto in Chris Woakes' opening over, lbw for four.

Batting was difficult and Muchall was fortunate in Woakes' second over to survive a chance at slip whilst Andy Miller's accurate spell produced some more uncertain shots from both Muchall and Stoneman.

When play was finally called off for the day, due to bad light, Stoneman and Muchall were beginning to look much more comfortable at the wicket, against a Warwickshire attack, from which Darren Maddy had to leave the field, reaching 65-1 at the early close of the day.