Bears beat Hants in three days to stay in title hunt

Rothesay County Championship, Division One, Utilita Bowl, Southampton (day three)

Warwickshire 398: Yates 109; Abbott 4-51

Hampshire 115& 154: Lehmann 42; Suthar 4-52

Warwickshire (22 pts) beat Hampshire (2 pts) by an innings and 129 runs

Match scorecard

India Test spinner Manav Suthar took seven wickets in the match as Warwickshire remained in the County Championship title hunt by beating relegation-threatened Hampshire inside three days.

Hampshire lost 14 wickets in the day at Southampton as they slumped from 74-6 in their first innings overnight before being bowled out in their second innings for 154 when they followed on.

While the Bears' innings-and-129-run win moves them within five points of new Division One leaders Somerset, who also won by an innings earlier in the day, Hampshire are now 31 points adrift of safety with just three games left.

With the next two matches away from home, at Nottingham and Leicester, the second longest-serving members of the top flight behind Somerset may well be relegated back to Division Two by the time they return to Southampton for their final game on 24 September.

After a delayed start, Hampshire lost their four remaining first innings wickets in exactly an hour.

Olly Hannon-Dalby had Andrew Neal caught at first slip to give him figures of 3-14, Suthar pinned James Fuller lbw and Ethan Bamber mopped things up, encouraging a thin edge from Ben Brown before Kyle Abbott drove low to midwicket.

It was the fourth successive match in which Hampshire had been bowled out for under 200 in the first innings - and they still have just three batting bonus points to their name this season.

The second innings was not much prettier as both openers were gone inside six overs as Chris Woakes joined in.

The former England fast bowler delivered a nip-backer to bowl Ali Orr before Nick Gubbins edged to second slip at head height.

Toby Albert and Jake Lehmann stuck around manfully and looked set in. But Lehmann was run out for 42 after a stand of 66, before Albert edged to slip.

But, from 128-4, the hosts lost their last six wickets for just 26, triggered by Ben Mayes' stumping.

Neal was lbw, James Fuller edged to slip, before Hannon-Dalby produced a searing in-swinger to bowl Scott Currie and then pinned Eddie Jack lbw.

Warwickshire's three-day win was confirmed when Abbott chipped to cover as Suthar (4-52) ended with match figures of 7-94.

Hampshire captain Ben Brown told BBC Radio Solent:

"Our form isn't good enough. It's drifting away from us. We have been particularly poor at home - and I feel sorry for our supporters. We need to find a way to manage our own conditions because we are playing our worst cricket here.

"It has been a poor week all around. We didn't support Kyle Abbott with the ball and 400 was way over par, and then with the bat we were well short. The reality is that it is three batting points all year. That has been a problem for a while.

"We have lost some incredibly talented players who propped the club up for a long period of time. It isn't easy to lose the generational players like James Vince, Liam Dawson, Keith Barker and Mohammad Abbas. We need time to rebuild."

Warwickshire head coach Ian Westwood told BBC Radio WM:

"We are in a good second. We know we are in the hunt. We started this block of six games pretty well - and this should give us a lot of confidence. It is our most dominant performance of the season.

"There was a bit in the pitch. We bowled well and caught well and having Manav back in the ranks was great - he is a classy operator.

"When you make a team follow on it rarely happens as easy as it did in the first innings. We knew we had to work hard and keep chipping away to create a window to get a flurry of wickets. And that is what happened."