Pasty’s big blitz: the inside story of Warwickshire’s great escape

It was dubbed the Great Escape, Warwickshire dodging relegation from Division One of the County Championship by a whisker on the final day of the season through Liam Norwell’s jaw-dropping nine-wicket blitz against Hampshire at Edgbaston.

Norwell – nicknamed “Pasty” due to his Cornish roots – and club stalwart Oliver Hannon-Dalby sent down all but seven of the 43.5 overs in a herculean display of seam bowling. The former attacked, the latter shut down the other end and a meagre target of 139 runs was somehow defended.

Over a round of coffees in leafy south Birmingham, and with a scorecard to hand, the pair sat down with the Observer to relive the tense nature of a heist that instead saw Yorkshire fall through the trap door with Gloucestershire.

Ali Martin: It’s the start of the day, you’re 62 for two, just 23 runs ahead, and there are three sessions left. What was the chat?

Oliver Hannon-Dalby: Weirdly, there was very little tension because our situation was so stark. The runs almost became secondary to needing two sessions to bowl them out. Whatever target we set Hampshire – 120, 180, 200 – it simply had to be enough.

Liam Norwell: There was total clarity and we were determined not to be relegated champions. We’d stopped talking about last year’s title win earlier in the season … but there was definitely an element of that in there, too.

OHD: We’d also been chatting about the Strauss report during rain breaks on the first two days, and the fact that, if it passed, relegation would mean two years down minimum. And with talk of promotion via a one-off playoff, it struck us all if we go down it could take four or five years. A nightmare.

OHD: Dom Sibley’s 77 was a brilliant innings with wickets falling around him and Sam