Warwickshire and Northamptonshire meandered their way to the inevitable LV=Insurance County Championship draw at Edgbaston where the match concluded with just ten wickets having fallen in four days.
The final instalment of a bat dominated stalemate saw the home side, in reply to Northamptonshire’s 597 for six take their first innings to 568 for four.
Against a toiling attack on a flat pitch, Hain and Lamb gently filled their boots during a final day which, like the three which preceded it, presented a less than compelling spectacle. Warwickshire resumed on 394 for four on the final morning and Jack White will feel aggrieved to have not had both batsmen within the first 20 minutes. A pair of strong LBW shouts turned down which allowed Hain and Lamb to bat serenely through the morning to take the total to 483 at lunch.
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Hain reached 150 from 378 balls while Lamb, having scored briskly the previous evening, settled for quiet accumulation. He advanced to 98 at lunch and reached his ton (163 balls) shortly after. There was little that visiting skipper Ricardo Vasconcelos could do except rotate his bowlers, though he did not exercise that option very much at one end. Simon Kerrigan bowled unchanged at the Pavilion End from 2.55pm on the third day until lunchtime on the fourth – a gruelling saga of 37 overs, delivered with not a shred of assistance from the pitch.
The left armer stuck to his task heroically but could have been forgiven, when he returned home with figures of 52-4-174-0, for seriously considering the removal of the captain from his Christmas card list.
It was the little-seen medium pace of Emilio Gay to which Vasconcelos turned for the last hour and, from this bowler, did Hain clip the leg-side single which moved him to 200 from 489 balls, 473 of which he had not struck for four.
Hands were shaken at 4.40pm with Northamptonshire taking the better of the spoils.
Northamptonshire 597/6dec (Vasconcelos 156, Young 134)
Warwickshire 568/4 (White 2/102, Procter 1/24)