County Championship: Surrey pacemen on top against faltering Bears in Birmingham

Kemar Roach took his season's wicket haul to nine in three matches

Reigning county champions Surrey had the better of a rain-hit day against 2021 winners Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

After winning the toss, Surrey skipper Rory Burns inserted the Bears and was rewarded with five wickets from his two overseas pacemen.

West Indian Kemar Roach took 3-31, while Australian Dan Worrall weighed in with 2-33 after both had looked good in an impressive new-ball morning burst.

Dan Mousley hit an unbeaten 55 as the Bears struggled to 143-8 off 51 overs.

It was no surprise that Surrey chose to bowl on such a cloudy morning and Roach had already had near misses when he bagged his first wicket, Rob Yates, a centurion in both the Bears' previous two home Championship games, with only his eighth delivery.

Yates went caught at second slip, as was Bears skipper Will Rhodes, off Worrall. And, when Alex Davies top edged an attempted hook off Roach, England keeper Ben Foakes took the catch to leave the hosts 23-3.

Tom Lawes then got the big wicket of Sam Hain for 10, to end the England hopeful's run of tons, after scoring 119 and 165 not out in his two previous innings this season.

Ed Barnard came in to help Mousley put on 45 for the fifth wicket. But Worrall again made use of Ollie Pope at second slip to remove Barnard and, in the next over, 34-year-old Roach dived low to take an excellent return catch off Michael Burgess for a sixth-ball duck.

Chris Woakes, having his first bat since England's third Test against the West Indies in Grenada in March 2022, helped Mousley add a further 48, either side of an hour-long rain break.

But, in the final over before bad light intervened, Woakes and Hasan Ali, first ball, both perished leg before wicket to Jordan Clark.

And, although Chris Rushworth survived the hat-trick ball, with the floodlights already on, it was then that Peter Hartley and Nigel Llong made the decision to come off before abandoning play for the day 35 minutes later.