Bears beat Leicestershire to secure ninth title

Rothesay County Championship, Division One, Edgbaston (day three)

Leicestershire 125: Bamber 4-42, Woakes 3-20 & 168: Scriven 49, Budinger 47; Bamber 5-52, Woakes 3-38

Warwickshire 372: Hain 142, Barnard 88; A Patel 3-78

Warwickshire (22 pts) beat Leicestershire (3 pts) by an innings and 79 runs

Match scorecard

Warwickshire completed their ninth County Championship title triumph as they took the final seven Leicestershire wickets they needed to claim victory by an innings and 79 runs.

Top Bears wicket-taker Ethan Bamber appropriately claimed the final scalp at a sun-kissed Edgbaston to finish with 5-52 and match figures of 9-94, well backed by former England all-rounder Chris Woakes (3-38).

The three-day win was enough to earn the hosts their first county title since 2021 and their fourth in the 21st century.

Tom Scriven hit 49 to at least help the relegation-bound Foxes into the afternoon session, but he could do nothing to halt the Bears' fantastic charge of five wins in six matches over the final run-in, three of them by an innings.

Leicestershire, for all their off-field woes, proved stiffer opposition - to the extent of their last pair taking the game into an eighth session.

Resuming at 55-3, Leicestershire were dealt a huge early blow when Woakes removed main dangerman Sol Budinger for 47, with only four added to his overnight tally.

Bowling round the wicket, Woakes brought an unplayable delivery back from outside off stump to hit the top of middle.

In his next but one over, Woakes had Jonny Tattersall caught by Rob Yates at second slip.

Then, just three balls later, it was Bamber's turn as he had Leicestershire's first-innings top scorer Ben Cox caught by Sam Hain at first slip.

Bamber struck again four overs later when Will Young hung onto an amazing one-hander high to his left at third slip to dismiss Ben Green.

Captain Ian Holland added a further 35 with Scriven before being trapped in front by Bears skipper Ed Barnard, and the ninth-wicket pair added 22 more to delay lunch by half an hour, but India Test spinner Manav Soutar removed Ajaz Patel's off stump with a vicious turner.

The Foxes battled hard to at least take the game into the afternoon - but, with Scriven cruelly one short of a deserved 50, Bamber quickly wrapped it up by clean bowling him to start another Edgbaston party.

Warwickshire's well-timed charge to their ninth County Championship title really did not look at all likely back in late March.

Alex Davies stepped down as captain two weeks before the start of the new season, to be replaced as skipper by the Bears' one-day leader Barnard.

They suffered their only defeat and won just twice in the opening eight-match tranche of fixtures up until mid-June, but what a different story it has been since the resumption in August - five wins in six games, as Barnard's pre-season optimism proved well founded.

Most crucially, three of those wins were all on the same road trip. Hampshire, Glamorgan and Essex were all disposed of in quick succession, the last two of them both taking just two days.

Spearheaded by Division One's leading wicket-taker Bamber, with 69 scalps, and the well-honed skills of the ageless Woakes and Oliver Hannon-Dalby, not to mention Barnard and Suthar chipping in, the bowlers have turned up when it mattered most.

But runs count too, and Sam Hain's 1,048 runs (his second-best Championship season), backed by Rob Yates (740), Barnard (679) and Dan Mousley (664), have been key.

Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and Somerset have never won the County Championship