Warwickshire set for the drop after humbling
Warwickshire’s relegation from County Championship Division One is set to be confirmed today after they were thrashed by champions-elect Essex at Edgbaston.
Essex virtually sealed their seventh Championship title by completing an innings-and-56-runs victory over the Bears, who should be left stranded at the foot of the Division One table as the three sides immediately above them – Yorkshire, Middlesex and Somerset – complete their matches today.
The home side were bowled out for 112 to suffer their second thumping of the season at the hands of Essex, who hammered them by an innings and 164 runs at Chelmsford in June.
The post-match mood in the two dressing-rooms at Edgbaston could not have been more contrasting – while Essex will begin the 2018 season as defending champions, Warwickshire will be in Division Two, their nine-year stay in the top flight having come to a bruising end.
Ashley Giles, the Bears’ sport director, said: “It’s disappointing. We’re going to get relegated, we know that and it’s important what happens now. We are certainly going to go through some change and perhaps the best place to do that is the Second Division.”
Only Wolverhampton’s Matt Lamb (35) offered any form of resistance.
