Warwickshire make accomplished start to life as county champions

NICK FRIEND AT LORD'S: It was a perfect day for Warwickshire, who could have been forgiven if they had struggled for focus less than a week on from climbing their Everest

Lord's (first day of five): Lancashire 78, Warwickshire 120-0 - Warwickshire lead by 42 runs with 10 first-innings wickets in hand

Scorecard

In the last decade, County Championship batting averages have never been lower than in September. And at a ground that this year has seen just a single score above 300 in domestic red-ball cricket, Warwickshire’s title-winning seam attack ensured there was to be no late-season shot in the arm for those statistics.

If the second-ever instalment of the Bob Willis Trophy descends into a fifth morning, we will be two days into October. That particular folly seems an unlikely prospect now, though, reliant on the kind of weather forecast that is entirely typical at this stage of autumn. Either side of rain delays that ultimately curtailed the first evening earlier than anticipated, however, the county champions had more than enough time to assert their authority as the best team in the land.

Warwickshire’s title win was a group effort that perhaps came a year or two earlier than planned, given the retirements last winter of Jeetan Patel, Ian Bell and Tim Ambrose. Five bowlers – Olly Hannon-Dalby, Will Rhodes, Danny Briggs, Craig Miles and Liam Norwell – claimed between 24 and 49 wickets each.

Chris Woakes was only available twice to his home county but contributed 12 scalps and plentiful enthusiasm. Having returned to domestic duties in the final week of the summer to help his club over the line, he was missing at Lord’s for an occasion that felt entirely respected but strangely lacklustre, shoehorned onto the end of an interminably long season that has left just about everyone in the game knackered.

The curious case of the Bob Willis Trophy, a grand concept in need of meaning

It was to Warwickshire’s immense credit, then, that they came out of the traps so quickly, winning an important toss and exploiting it to maximum effect. One of the several issues with holding this game at this juncture is opening up the newly crowned champions to immediate jeopardy only a matter of days after clinching a title five months in the earning.

The capacity to switch the tap back on after a weekend’s deserved celebrations is the kind of wizardry that separates elite athletes from the rest of us. That is not to criticise Lancashire: if Dane Vilas had won the toss here, they may well have found themselves in charge of this game themselves. They endured one of those days – the kind from which they will do well to recover, but then they won a crazy game last week to secure their spot here in the first place, so maybe all is not lost.

Not that there were many spectators watching it unfold; it was always going to be virtually impossible for fans of either county to book a week off work at a few days’ notice, and that showed in the shape of an entirely empty Mound Stand.

^{Dom Sibley was unbeaten on 49 at the close of play}

Those who did show up were treated to an exhibition that was led by Norwell and Miles, and then maintained by Manraj Johal on his first-class debut. The 19-year-old came through Warwickshire’s academy, having been at the county since the age of 11 – minus a spell when he was dropped from the emerging player programme. He featured six times in the Royal London Cup earlier this summer and has turned out for Staffordshire but looked quite comfortably at home in running through Lancashire’s tail, who made the 21st double-figure total in domestic red-ball cricket this season.

But for injury problems, Norwell might have found himself on England’s radar by now; quite apart from his Stokesian facial hair, he was the quickest bowler on show for Mark Robinson’s side and claimed his 50th red-ball wicket of the summer when George Balderson looked to leave a delivery that reared up at him. He was a constant menace, only conceding nine runs in six overs; his record for Warwickshire now reads 69 wickets at 19.7 apiece, six of which came in the first innings a month ago when these teams last met.

James Bracey, a former teammate during their time together at Gloucestershire, described him to The Cricketer last year as among the most difficult bowlers he had kept wicket against.

“Because he comes quite wide of the crease, he’s always running the ball back at the batter, so you always know that there’s going to be that inside edge opportunity,” he explained. “But because of his seam position, he made it wobble more than a lot of other people.”

That skillset was evident all morning; for his second wicket, he had Rob Jones caught behind with a delivery that angled in from the hand but then deviated the other way off the seam to locate an outside edge. At that point, Lancashire were 12 for 6 and in serious danger of falling to their lowest-ever first-class total.

That they recovered to be bowled out for 78 told its own story: only four players made more than a single. Five players – Luke Wells, Dane Vilas, Steven Croft, Tom Bailey and Matt Parkinson – fell without scoring. Three of those were victims of Miles, another Warwickshire seamer who made the journey across from Bristol and ended the innings with the 17th five-wicket haul of a quite prolific career. As well as their respective county cricket journeys, their records are almost identical: Norwell has made three fewer first-class appearances than Miles and is five wickets behind.

^{Alex Davies is set to join Warwickshire after this game}

In helpful conditions, they were efficient and polished in equal measure: chances were taken, Vilas was undone by a perfect yorker and Miles dived full length to catch Alex Davies – a teammate once this game is out of the way – off his own bowling. When Luke Wood threatened a counterattack, Rhodes, Warwickshire’s title-winning skipper, dropped his fielders to the rope as soon as was streetwise.

In reply, Dom Sibley and Rob Yates made hay: their 120-run stand was unbroken at the close, with both surviving a chance each and Yates the aggressor, leaving the field at a truncated close more than two thirds of the way towards a fifth first-class century of the season – some effort for a 22-year-old who only made his professional debut two summers ago and is dividing his time with an English language degree at the University of Birmingham.

The crux of his work has come at Edgbaston, only surpassing this score away from home once all season, when he made 88 against Worcestershire. Sibley, with whom Yates traded glorious straight boundaries, will resume one run short of fifty.

It was a perfect day for Warwickshire, who could have been forgiven if they had struggled for focus less than a week on from climbing their Everest. The Bob Willis Trophy could provide county cricket with an excellent platform if it is utilised properly. Tagging it onto the edge of October is not the way to maximise that opportunity. But Willis’ former club began life as county champions with a high-class tribute.