Warwickshire stretched their winning run against Worcestershire by wrapping up a 181-run County Championship victory before tea on the final day as Jeetan Patel picked up four second innings wickets
Press Association12-May-2015
ScorecardJeetan Patel took four wickets as Warwickshire picked up their first wicket of the season•Getty Images
Warwickshire stretched their winning run against Worcestershire by wrapping up a 181-run County Championship victory before tea on the final day as Jeetan Patel picked up four second innings wicketsSet a victory target of 437 at Edgbaston, the visitors were bowled out for 255 to suffer their sixth successive defeat to their old rivals in four-day cricket. The reverse came as a jolt for Daryl Mitchell’s side after their eye-catching victory over Somerset at New Road last week.But Warwickshire’s first win of the season gets them up and running after two draws and sends them into next week’s intriguing home clash with Durham with some momentum behind them.After resuming on the final morning on 88 for 2, Worcestershire needed at least two batsmen to last a long time and they scrapped hard throughout the morning only for two wickets on the brink of lunch to pitch them into trouble.They got to within 10 minutes of the interval having lost only one wicket in the session, nightwatchman Charlie Morris caught by Rikki Clarke at second slip off Keith Barker. Mitchell and Tom Fell then added 47 in 20 overs with the former dropping the deepest of anchors. The captain formed the backbone of his team’s resistance with a diligent 38 in almost four hours only to perish with lunch beckoning when, undone by extra bounce, he edged Boyd Rankin to Clarke in the cordon.In the next over, Fell was trapped lbw by spinner Patel for 33 and, having been a promising 147 for 3, Worcestershire went into lunch wobbling at 148 for 5.The momentum stayed with the home side in the afternoon. Patel soon picked up his second wicket of the day, and his 500th in first-class cricket, with another lbw decision when Alex Gidman played across the line. Alexei Kervezee chopped Clarke to Laurie Evans at gully and Ben Cox’s engaging counter-attack, 44 from 47 balls with eight fours, concluded with a bottom-edged cut to wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose.Jack Shantry edged Rankin to Ambrose to leave last pair Joe Leach and Sachithra Senanayake needing to find 214 to bring their team victory. Nick Knight and Alan Richardson famously added that many for Warwickshire’s 10th wicket against Hampshire at Edgbaston in 2002 but there was no repeat, Senanayake soon sending a catch to Varun Chopra at slip off Barker to bring Warwickshire victory with 44 overs to spare.”In the first two matches we played quite well in patches without getting over the line and that was a bit annoying,” Patel said. “In this game, again we still did not quite hit our straps, but we showed more prolonged glimpses of the way we like to play cricket and we got the result we wanted. We are getting closer to where we need to be.”We sustained pressure on the opposition for longer periods in this game. The two wickets just before lunch were important but, to be fair, there was always something brewing. Daryl Mitchell batted very well but in the end we got the wickets we deserved.”I was pleased to get to 500 wickets. Before I came to England this year I knew I was pretty close and the main thing was to do the job for Warwickshire and then the wickets would come with that. It is nice to tick the 500 off and now I can get on with the rest of the season.”Worcestershire director of cricket Steve Rhodes rued the two wickets before lunch: “There is never a good time to lose a wicket but just before a session ends is even more important. We were put under pressure by the way we batted in the first innings when we were rolled in 42 overs. That puts you in a very delicate position and it’s the real reason why we ended up losing.”You can’t afford to have a bad session in four-day cricket as we have had in the three games we have lost. The nature of the game is to wait for the opportunity to get in front and ram it home and that’s what Warwickshire did ever so well.”Our bowlers did well. They worked tirelessly and wholeheartedly and by the time it got to the stand between Boyd Rankin and Chris Wright, who played ever so well, our bowlers had just run out of juice. That’s because we hadn’t given them enough recovery time while we were batting.”