Foakes career-best as Surrey draw at Edgbaston

Ben Foakes beat his previous best of 141 not out against Hampshire in 2016

Rothesay County Championship Division One, Edgbaston (day four)

Warwickshire 665-5 dec: Latham 184, Barnard 177*, Malik 105*; Lawes 2-107

Surrey 504: Foakes 174*, Sibley 64, Steel 55; Yates 3-124 & 15-0 (f/o)

Warwickshire (13 pts) drew with Surrey (11 pts)

Match scorecard

Ben Foakes harvested a career-best unbeaten 174 for champions Surrey as their County Championship match with Warwickshire drifted to a draw at Edgbaston.

Foakes amassed 174 from 361 balls, the last 107 of them in a 10th-wicket stand of 158 in 58 overs with Matt Fisher, who made 40, as Surrey totalled 504 in reply to Warwickshire's 665-5.

On a bowlers' graveyard of a pitch, the game's third innings finally began at 3.15pm on the final day. Surrey, following on, reached 15 without loss before a merciful downpour arrived to wash out a pointless last session.

This was the 172nd County Championship match between these teams and although The Oval pitch on which they completed an entire game in one day in 1953 (Warwickshire 45 and 52, Surrey 146) may have been a bit too bowler-friendly, this was way too far the other way.

Surrey resumed on the last morning on 369-9, still 147 short of the follow on figure, but Warwickshire knew they had to polish off the first innings quickly if they were to press for victory.

The excellent Foakes ensured that didn't happen and advanced down the pitch to strike Rob Yates for successive glorious sixes; the first took him to 9,000 first class runs and the second to his 17th first class century, from 197 balls.

Foakes and Fisher batted through the morning session to add 118 in 39 overs with a degree of comfort which only increased the mystery as to how Surrey's batters got into a tangle on the third day.

At 131, the partnership between Foakes and Fisher became a 10th-wicket record for Surrey against Warwickshire, beating the 130 by Bert Strudwick and Bill Hitch at Edgbaston in 1911.

At lunch, it stood at 141, 32 short of the county's 10th-wicket best against anyone - 173 by Andy Ducat and Andy Sandham against Essex at Leyton in 1921.

They advanced to within 15 of the record when Fisher edged Ed Barnard to wicketkeeper Alex Davies.

Despite having just spent 178.2 overs in the field, Warwickshire enforced the follow on with a minimum of 43 overs left in the day.

Their bowlers no doubt led the sense of collective relief when, after just five of those overs, a terminal thunderstorm arrived.

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Warwickshire head coach Ian Westwood:

"We turned up this morning with a lot of hope and expectation and I think if we had managed to get that wicket early, out there with fresh legs and a new ball it might have been very interesting.

"But I don't want today to put a dampener on how well we have played on the first three days.

"Yes, it was a good batting pitch but we got stuck in and managed to get a big total and then I thought the highlight was yesterday's performance with the ball. The effort and skill was fantastic.

"It's been a good start to the season. We were desperate to win this game but a solid, high-scoring draw against Surrey is not the worst result by any means and puts us in a good place going into the next two games before we go into the T20."

Surrey wicketkeeper Ben Foakes:

"We had one job to do and just had to bat as long as possible. Matt (Fisher) batted really well - it helped that he is not a number 11.

"I have felt alright so far this season. We have played on some pretty good pitches away from home and I have managed to cash in.

"It's not easy taking wickets on these pitches so we have got to try and work out ways to get wickets. There definitely are ways to get wickets, you've got to be creative on pitches like that.

"We know at The Oval it does a bit for the seamers and we have a formula for there where you don't really need to stray too far from the top of off, whereas, on pitches like this, that potentially doesn't work as well."