Ed Barnard keeps bid for victory alive for Warwickshire
Ed Barnard’s effectiveness with bat and ball maintained Warwickshire’s hopes of victory over Somerset as this end-of-season, mid-table LV=Insurance County Championship clash meandered along under leaden skies at Edgbaston.
At the end of a third successive heavily weather-affected day, Somerset were 90 for two in their second innings, 32 ahead, after bowling the home side out for 273.
Josh Davey took three for 62 and Neil Wagner three for 67 but Barnard’s skilful and patient 73 (144 balls) maintained his excellent late-season form and gave his side a handy first innings lead of 58. Barnard then took both wickets as Somerset ground their way in front.
Rain and bad light have chopped 125 overs from days one to three but, with better weather forecast for the fourth, a decisive result remains possible. Quick wickets could herald a Warwickshire victory bid, or the captains could simply agree a target overnight.
Barnard said: “We’ll just go out there and try to take a few wickets and make things happen and see what we can do.
“Quite a lot of pace came out of the pitch so it is quite hard to score at times but they bowled really well in the first hour to put us under some pressure.
“It was nice for me to bat some time with some of the lads down the order and get some runs.”
