They may have been few people’s favourites a couple of weeks ago but the style with which Warwickshire surged to the top of their Twenty20 Cup qualifying group suggests they must be considered serious contenders for this year’s competition.
They thrashed Northamptonshire by nine wickets here last night, completing victory with 26 balls to spare. Bearing in mind that Northants were top of the table with four wins out of four before yesterday, this was a highly-impressive performance.
Victory also maintained Warwickshire’s unbeaten sequence in the tournament after five away matches. They require a maximum of three victories from their five home games (starting this evening with the visit of local rivals Worcestershire to Edgbaston) to book their place in the quarter-finals.
A brutal half-century by Neil Carter may have been the most eye-catching moment of the game but this was another victory built upon teamwork. Warwickshire again bowled and fielded excellently with Chris Martin, Tim Groenewald and the two spinners being particularly effective.
Only a tenth-wicket stand of 35 - the highest partnership of the innings - helped Northants avoid the ignominy of registering the lowest score in the history of the competition (67 by Sussex against Hampshire at Hove in 2004), but this was still their lowest total (it had previously been 128 for five against Glamorgan) and is the lowest total made against Warwickshire (surpassing the 113 made by Glamorgan at Edgbaston in 2003).
At one point, Northants subsided to 67 for nine as Warwickshire’s bowlers ripped through the top order. Martin and Groenewald, the former gaining steep bounce and the latter surprising pace, recorded the rare feat of achieving wicket maidens, as Northants’ frustrated batsmen picked out the fieldsmen in desperate attempts to score.
There was, perhaps, a degree of self-destruction about the home team’s batting performance. The run-out of Nicky Boje, who ended up at the same end as Rikki Wessels after attempting an impossible single, was the most obvious example, but some of the shot selection was appalling.
If the hosts panicked it was only because Warwickshire applied the pressure. Martin took two wickets in two balls to start the process while Ant Botha yet again produced an impressive performance.
Had his final delivery not been driven for six by Johan Louw, he would have equalled Brad Hogg’s return for the most frugal analysis for the club, while he also claimed three catches, including a tricky skier to dismiss Niall O’Brien.
The discipline of Warwickshire’s cricket has been a feature of this Twenty20 campaign. Though they conceded their first wide in three games last night - the culprit, Ian Salisbury, immediately apologised to his team-mates - Warwickshire are giving next to nothing away through mis-fields or loose bowling, forcing the batting side into risk-taking in order to set defendable totals.
Their catching last night was faultless - Salisbury clung on to two sharp chances - while their composure when batting means they are increasingly adept at chasing totals.
Certainly Louw and Jason Brown’s resistance was never likely to be enough for the home side. No side has successfully defended anything fewer than 112 in Twenty 20 and so well did Carter (28 balls, five fours and four sixes) bat that a total well in excess of 150 would surely not have been beyond Warwickshire.
He raced to his half-century (his second in this competition) in only 25 balls, pulling three enormous sixes and driving another as a crowd of 4,000 was made to scatter for cover.
It is, however, worth noting that he perished to the first ball of spin bowling he faced and it would be interesting to see how he might have reacted if the opposition opened their bowling with spin instead of seam. Jim Troughton (25 balls, a four and a six) and Jonathan Trott (41 balls, two fours) ensured there was to be no slip-up.
There was, of course, a sub-plot to yesterday’smatch. Ashley Giles, Warwickshire’s director of cricket, has become increasingly vocal in his condemnation of counties signing ‘Kolpak’ players and would have taken particular relish in this result.
For, while his team contained ten England-qualified cricketers, the Northants side contained five ‘Kolpak’ registrations as well as South African overseas player Louw. For Giles, therefore, this victory, perhaps Warwickshire’s most dominant in the history of this competition, surely tasted even sweeter.
