Leach takes five as Bears draw at home to Somerset

Somerset's England spinner Jack Leach took his 27th five-fer in first-class cricket

Vitality County Championship, Division One, Edgbaston (day four)

Warwickshire 337: Yates 69, Burgess 69, Bethell 64, Davey 4-80, Overton 4-88 & 270: Davies 131; Leach 5-77

Somerset 239: Aldridge 84, Rew 49; Barnard 5-54 & 206-4: Rew 55*

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

Match scorecard

Warwickshire made it five home County Championship Divison One draws out of five this season as they finally shook hands on a final-day stalemate with Somerset.

In a game interrupted by the weather on all four days, there was too much time lost for a more positive result, but the 13 points they accrued were enough to keep the Bears out of the bottom two.

Although overtaken by local rivals Worcestershire, who beat bottom club Kent, Warwickshire now have both Nottinghamshire and Lancashire below them going into the final four games.

Somerset remain second, but they only gained 11 points from the fixture - and now trail leaders Surrey by 35 as the famous Oval gasometer looks set to beckon home a third straight title.

Resuming on 179-5, with home skipper Alex Davies having completed his 11th first-class century the evening before, he was the first wicket of the day to fall for 131, to an ugly shot off Jack Leach.

On the fifth anniversary of Leach's famous innings - "arguably the greatest one not out in the history of the game" - at Headingley in August 2019, it turned out to be the first of five morning wickets for the currently mothballed England spinner.

Overlooked by England in favour of Somerset team-mate Shoaib Bashir since the opening Test against India in Hyderabad in January, he took five wickets for 18 runs in 49 balls - for his 27th first-class five-wicket haul.

Having made 410-5 - their second-highest ever run chase - to beat the Bears at Taunton six weeks ago, a target of 369 did not daunt Somerset.

But yet another rain interruption proved costly - and no serious attempt was made to chase the runs, although their two openers, Tom Kohler-Cadmore and former Bear Andy Umeed were both caught at deep mid-wicket.

Tom Lammonby and Tom Banton both mistimed pulls off Michael Rae before James Rew plundered a 23-ball half-century before the light failed and the game was called off as a draw.

The Bears now face seemingly doomed bottom club Kent on Thursday when another home draw would really cause a bit of consternation to the dwindling band of Edgbaston members.

Somerset's next game starts the same day at home to Durham, while their title hopes chiefly rest on both them and third-placed Essex still having to play Surrey at home.

Warwickshire coach Mark Robinson told BBC CWR:

"Having got a first innings lead of over 100, it was then a shame to lose a whole session to the weather because that stops your ability to dictate.

“On this type of surface it just gets flatter and flatter and favours the team batting on the last day. It is hard to bowl somebody out on that type of surface.

"A bit of carelessness from us with the bat and then the weather has meant it was a draw. We were a little bit careless on third day and that cost us the right to dictate.

"You always want to win but, given a couple of other results around the country, we're happy to take the points from a draw. Plenty of times this season we have got ourselves into good positions in games but then either us not being ruthless enough or the weather has thwarted us.”

Somerset captain Craig Overton told BBC Radio Somerset:

"It was disappointing to lose time to the weather because we felt we could chase that target down. With a short boundary on one side and the power in our batting line-up we definitely thought we could chase it.

"Jack Leach bowled really well this morning to put us in that position. He has been struggling a little bit with his rhythm but I just told him to go out there and bowl and let it happen and not worry about it and he bowled beautifully.

"We have lost some ground on Surrey in this round and it is going to be tough to catch them now because they are a top side with a squad that other counties can only dream of having.

“But you never know, it just takes one win and one defeat to change things. We'll just keep on going and they have got to come to us in September so that will be a huge game.”