County Championship: Fidel Edwards stars in Hampshire win

Fidel Edwards took his match tally to nine wickets as Hampshire cruised to a vital 216-run win over Warwickshire at the Ageas Bowl.

Bottom-side Hampshire took only 20 overs on Monday morning to claim the four wickets they needed, bowling the visitors out for 227 and picking up 21 vital points in their bid to avoid relegation from County Championship Division One.

The victory was only their second of the season, and first on home soil, while defeat leaves Warwickshire 50 points adrift of now runaway leaders Yorkshire, who also have a game in hand.

They started the day on 161-6, chasing 444 for victory, and lost Rikki Clarke in the first over when he was caught off the bowling of Jackson Bird for 55.

Keith Barker soon followed for a duck in the next over, which was bowled by Edwards, who had taken 5-32 in Warwickshire's first innings.

Edwards made it figures of 9-87 in the match when he dismissed Jeetan Patel for 10, and although there was a dogged 10th wicket stand of 41 between Chris Woakes and Boyd Rankin (16 not out), the game came to an end when Woakes fell to the off-spinner Will Smith for 42.

Elsewhere, rapidly improving Nottinghamshire made it three wins in four when they completed a five-wicket victory over Worcestershire at New Road.

Needing 232 to win, the visitors began the day on 157-3, but their run chase was delayed for 75 minutes by a heavy shower.

James Taylor and Riki Wessels had already 120 for the fourth-wicket after Notts had slipped to 37-3 and the duo carefully added 31 in 12 overs before lunch.

After the break they took their stand to 157, a fourth-wicket record for the county in championship meetings with Worcestershire, before falling in successive overs to Saeed Ajmal with victory in sight.

Taylor (66) was caught at extra-cover and Wessels (88) was taken at mid-off as they tried to attack the off-spinner.

That made it 200-5 but Samit Patel (17 not out) avoided a pair with a six to mid-wicket off Brett D'Oliveira and Chris Read (19 not out) finished the match off with successive fours off Ajmal (2-61).

Nottinghamshire were bottom of the table on 24 June but have taken 77 points from their last four matches and have won their last 10 completed games in all competitions.

Relegation-threatened Worcestershire have lost seven completed games in a row, mainly in the Royal London One-Day Cup.

There was an exciting final day at Lord’s and Middlesex are second in the table after a 20-run victory over second-bottom Sussex.

Having been set 266 to win, Sussex were reduced to 44-3 but ended up falling just 20 runs short as Chris Nash made 66 and Ben Brown made 68.

Middlesex began the day on 326-8 but were bowled out for 331 as Steve Magoffin (5-73) quickly took the last two wickets, Dawid Malan finishing unbeaten on 120 not out.

Sussex reached 36-0 when they began their chase but then lost three wickets for eight runs as James Harris (4-57) removed the top three in the order.

Nash steadied the ship somewhat with Michael Yardy (11) and Luke Wright (20) but it was 103-5 when Tim Murtagh (2-40) bowled Wright.

Nash and Brown then added 60 for the sixth wicket, only for Toby Roland-Jones (3-78) to remove Nash and also dismiss Ashar Zaidi and Oliver Robinson, as the visitors slipped to 215-9.

But Brown was still there and, with last man Chris Liddle (4 not out) defending resolutely at the other end, the last wicket pair added 30 runs.

However, just as Middlesex were starting to sweat, Brown pulled a short ball from Murtagh straight to James Franklin on the boundary, and the Sussex batsman threw his bat down in frustration as the victory bid fell just short.