County Championship: Rob Yates completes ton but Bears held up by weather against Hants

Six of Rob Yates' seven first-class centuries have come at Edgbaston

Warwickshire still have an outside chance of escaping relegation despite another frustrating day of rain and bad light at Edgbaston.

In the 32.1 overs of play possible, Bears opener Rob Yates completed his first red-ball century in a year.

But Yorkshire's struggles against Gloucestershire have opened up an unexpected escape hatch for relegation-haunted Warwickshire.

They now know if they win and the Tykes lose, they will be safe.

Although a Yorkshire defeat against the bottom club looks a distinct possibility, the hard part for Warwickshire will be bowling out second-placed Hampshire twice in two days.

But the two batting bonus points they acquired on day two - coupled with the Tykes' failure to pick up any batting points - means that if they can go on to glean the full 16 points for a victory, then they would match the Tykes' points total - and have one more win overall - regardless of whether they accrue any bowling points.

They also have a much better weather forecast for the final two days of the season and, although Hampshire have the incentive of avoiding defeat to ensure finishing runners-up, they are without their injured main strike bowler Kyle Abbott.

It was a classic on-off day as the Bears, resuming on 138-2, with Yates on 77, added 19 in 11 overs before coming off for bad light.

They then managed 28 in six overs before rain, then blasted 29 in just under four overs in their next mini-session, during which they went past 200 to claim a first batting point and Yates went to his first County Championship century since last season's final title-winning victory over Somerset.

He hit four Championship hundreds last summer, all at Edgbaston (in fact, all but one of his nine career tons have been made in Birmingham) - and his only previous century this season was in the One-Day Cup against Sussex in August.

But the disciplined left-hander, touted as an England prospect a year ago, put this season's struggles behind him in timely fashion.

Yates had his chief support from top Bears run scorer Sam Hain (44) before being bowled by Ian Holland's first ball after an interruption.

Then, just four balls later, Hain edged a fine delivery from James Fuller to wicketkeeper Nye Donald.

Skipper Will Rhodes (28) and Dan Mousley (27) added an unbroken 58 in 51 balls to claim that all-important second batting point before yet another interruption but the last of those weather breaks triggered a declaration on 272-4.

The Bears nearly made a quick breakthrough in the 19 balls possible before the light finally faded for the final time but Hain put down Felix Organ at second slip off Oliver Hannon-Dalby.

Warwickshire captain Will Rhodes told BBC Radio WM:

"We declared because it's one of those games where you've got to risk losing to try to win. There is no point in carrying on batting and trying to get all the batting points when we have the bonus points we need. Now we just have to win.

"The Yorkshire result down at Bristol is a big one for us so we have just got to dangle that carrot to Hampshire and play aggressively. Our aim was to get to 300 as quickly as we could but the one thing you can't control in cricket is the rain.

"There is still a lot in the pitch. Hopefully there are two days of cloud cover and we can get our rewards.

"It's a shame we couldn't hold that catch in the first over. That would have given us a nice little start, but I'm sure if we get enough balls in the right areas, we will create more chances."

Hampshire bowler James Fuller told BBC Radio Solent:

"We'll just try to bat for as long as we can, then keep batting and bat a bit longer.

"We have got to post a good score and then, if there is a chance to win, try to take it, but a draw would be good enough to keep us second in the table.

"We need five points and a draw would give us more than that.

"It looks like a good deck. On day one it was playing quite nicely. It nipped around a little bit with a few overheads and a bit of water on it but hopefully we'll have some sunshine."