County cricket: Warwickshire lay Hampshire bare to keep pace at top

Last season, fearful of the art, or rather, the discipline, of batting out a draw being lost, the Championship increased its points value to eight. This season, after something of a change of heart in the England set-up (of which you’ll be aware), the draw is back to five points. So how’s that working out?

To be fair, sometimes a match just falls that way. Sometimes the weather elbows its way too far into the elemental mix that decides a cricket match, and sometimes a draw is a thrilling result that produces what fans and England need.

Eight of the 20 matches played in Division One this season have failed to produce a result. In Division Two, it’s 11 from 16 matches. Despite the mitigation offered by this dank spring and an unsympathetic fixture list, that suggests that there is room for players to embrace risk more than they have chosen to do in this early tranche of matches. Perhaps the requirement to bat on to 450 for full bonus points is the real culprit here.

There was no lack of enterprise at Chelmsford as Essex took out their frustration after day three’s rain washed away most of their advantage, belting some morning runs to leave the champions 273 to get in a minimum of 54 overs. That’s the kind of challenge that gives both sides a sniff.

Though Ollie Pope gave it his best Bazball disdain for the draw with 47 off 58 deliveries, when Will Jacks fell with 190 still to get, four results shrunk to two.

Harmer produced some very old-school bowling figures of 13-9-6-2, but Jamie Smith got his head down to bat out 25 overs in the company of No 8 Cameron Steel and No 9 Jordan Clark, both of whom average 28 in first-class cricket, a handy insurance policy in such circumstances. Surrey stay top.

Warwickshire, surging back