Surrey ease to win over Warwickshire
Vitality County Championship Division One, The Kia Oval (day four)
Warwickshire 343 & 209: Yates 52, Barnard 44; Roach 6-46
Surrey 464 & 89-1: Sibley 46*, Burns 30
Surrey (24 pts) beat Warwickshire (4 pts) by nine wickets
Surrey took just 39 minutes on the fourth morning to complete an impressive nine-wicket victory over Warwickshire at the Kia Oval and go 21 points clear at the top of County Championship Division One.
Dom Sibley finished unbeaten on 46 and Ollie Pope scored 13 not out after captain Rory Burns, on 30, hit Jacob Bethell straight to deep mid-on soon after skipping down the pitch and lofting the same bowler straight for six.
Sibley collected two boundaries for firm on-drives against Bethell, while Pope swept the left-arm spinner for four and also drove Rob Yates' off-spin to the extra-cover boundary in a little cameo.
Surrey began the final day needing 58 more runs to win, after resuming on 31 without loss chasing a modest fourth-innings target of 89 for a third successive win and a maximum 24 points.
The 2022 and 2023 champions are already looking in ominously powerful form again as they bid for a hat-trick of titles and a fourth in seven years.
After five matches, Surrey have opened up a significant lead over both second-placed Essex and Somerset, who are a further two points back in third.
Neither Essex nor Somerset played in this round of games.
Report supplied by the ECB Reporters' network
'They're Man City' - post-match reaction
Warwickshire first team coach Mark Robinson:
“We’ve done a lot right, but we haven’t been good enough.
"It’s aspirational for us as a big club like Warwickshire to get up level with them [Surrey] – at the moment they’re Man City and we’re not, you need a few things to go your way to give yourselves the best chance.
“We’ve got four front-line bowlers who are unavailable so that doesn’t help – it was a tall bowler's wicket and we’re having to overbowl [Will] Rhodes and [Ed] Barnard. [Aamir] Jamal at the moment is struggling for rhythm and not reaching the sort of pace we’d like him to.
“We don’t like being bowled out in 60 overs, and we shouldn’t be, but there’s a lot of variation in the wicket and Surrey have an international attack.”
