Worcestershire have steadied the ship in Cardiff after the early loss of Josh Dell. Two Callum Ferguson boundaries in the same Timm van der Gugten over have taken him to 21 not out.

Daryl Mitchell is on 23 at the other end. They need another 279 with 51 overs to go.

Now Dom Sibley's long innings is over, there's precious little left to stir the emotions in this match.

Especially as Warwickshire's run rate has actually slowed on the Canterbury shirtfront since his departure.

Tim Ambrose is on 19, batting with debutant loan man Ben Mike, who has taken over an hour, and 61 balls.

We're now into the 334th over of the match - and still only 13 wickets have been taken!

The game will not officially be put out of its misery until 10 minutes to five.

All of a sudden Yorkshire are leaking boundaries.

David Willey comes on for his first over and Scott Borthwick slashes a wide one over the slips before glancing to fine leg.

In the next, bowled by Keshav Maharaj, Dean Elgar collects four to backward square before Borthwick sweeps powerfully for another.

Another 195 needed by Surrey.

for Dean Elgarpublished at 14:22 British Summer Time 3 July 2019

14:22 BST 3 July 2019

Yorkshire 327 & 352 v Surrey 362 & 106-1

Dean Elgar is down the track to drive South Africa Keshav Maharaj away over mid-off for four, and two balls later unfurls a cheeky reverse sweep to pick up two runs and move to a half-century off 99 deliveries faced.

Ravi Ashwin holes out to Peter Siddle at mid on and Jamie Porter takes the vital wicket to secure another Essex victory.

Spinner Simon Harmer - the country's leading wicket taker - does most of the damage on the final day, taking three of the five wickets to fall, to finish with the astonishingly economical figures of 40-24-35-4.

More overs bowled than runs conceded. Remarkable!

It's Essex's fifth win in six County Championship matches - but they have actually lost a little ground on Division One leaders Somerset this week.

Image source, Getty Images

While Somerset claimed a 24-point maximum for their equally crushing win against Hampshire, Essex only got 22 points, having only picked up three batting bonus points.

Somerset now lead Essex by 15 points.

But the way things are going, it is starting to look as if this year's title race could all come down to the final game of the season at Taunton between Somerset and Essex in late September.

Absolutely no pace there as Steven Patterson finds the edge of Scott Borthwick's bat but the ball lands well in front of the slips and finds a gap between them to run away for four.

Surrey's total reaches three figures, with only one wicket lost. They need another 218 to win.

There's not much Dean Elgar and Mark Stoneman haven't seen during their careers, and the two 32-year-old's, who have 63 first-class hundreds between them, are doing a fine job laying a foundation for a successful run-chase by Surrey.

Keshav Maharaj and Steven Patterson are keeping it tight for Yorkshire, but the home side need to break this partnership.

The Surrey target is 318.

There was an early finish yesterday at Hove where Northamptonshire, who went into the game bottom of Division Two, convincingly beat Sussex by 393 runs.

The ease of their victory, spearheaded by seamer Ben Sanderson's career-best match figures of 10-55, took head coach David Ripley by surprise.

"I thought the game would be a good, hard-fought four days on a good surface and it's just nibbled a little bit for all the seam bowlers. We just didn't see that coming," he told BBC Radio Northampton.

"Many times this season we've played better than a team sitting bottom of the league, we've had good sessions, good days and haven't quite taken our chances here and there, but we've put a really good three days together here and come out emphatic winners."

Image source, Rex Features

We have a game on our hands in Cardiff.

Unbeaten Glamorgan make the declaration over lunch, so Worcestershire need 326 from 66 overs.

It's been almost exactly a year since he last played a senior game for England Lions against India A, but now he's on the way back.

Warwickshire's Dom Sibley has certainly had a busy couple of days.

The Bears opener's dismissal just before lunch for a career-best 244 against Kent at Canterbury, the highest score in the County Championship this season, was the first time during this match that he had not been out there on the pitch.

But what are his immediate career prospects now, after so painstakingly rewriting his entry in next year's Playfair Cricket Annual. And, more particularly, in a month's time? Might England need a new Test opener?

Back in the Caribbean in February, Rory Burns, alongside whom Sibley made his first-class debut for Surrey in 2013, and Keaton Jennings had the jobs.

Neither have yet made totally compelling claims to become Sir Alastair Cook's long-term successor at the top of the England order.

Image source, Getty Images

Or does another of Sibley's old Surrey team-mates, Jason Roy, the new darling of the one-day game, have stronger claims to finally become a Test player?

There is an obvious connection for Sibley to the England set-up. Ashley Giles, who signed Sibley for Warwickshire, is now the head honcho of English cricket. His Bears replacement Paul Farbrace left his job as England assistant coach to come to Edgbaston. And chairman of selectors Ed Smith is known to have sounds out Farbrace. But Sibley himself, like all of us, is just an interested onlooker.

"A lot of people are chatting about it and there's a bit of hype surrounding my name," Sibley told BBC Coventry & Warwickshire's Clive Eakin at the close of play on Tuesday night, after becoming the first to 1,000 first-class runs this season and the first Division One batsman to hit a County Championship double century this summer.

"But I just want to keep batting and scoring runs. It's really that simple. If I keep batting and stay in the grove then who knows? We'll see what happens."