Ben Foakes harvested a career-best unbeaten 174 for champions Surrey as their County Championship match with Warwickshire drifted to a draw at Edgbaston.
Foakes amassed 174 from 361 balls, the last 107 of them in a 10th-wicket stand of 158 in 58 overs with Matt Fisher, who made 40, as Surrey totalled 504 in reply to Warwickshire’s 665-5.
On a bowlers’ graveyard of a pitch, the game’s third innings finally began at 3.15pm on the final day. Surrey, following on, reached 15 without loss before a merciful downpour arrived to wash out a pointless last session.
This was the 172nd County Championship match between these teams and although The Oval pitch on which they completed an entire game in one day in 1953 (Warwickshire 45 and 52, Surrey 146) may have been a bit too bowler-friendly, this was way too far the other way.
Surrey resumed on the last morning on 369-9, still 147 short of the follow on figure, but Warwickshire knew they had to polish off the first innings quickly if they were to press for victory.
The excellent Foakes ensured that didn’t happen and advanced down the pitch to strike Rob Yates for successive glorious sixes; the first took him to 9,000 first class runs and the second to his 17th first class century, from 197 balls.
Foakes and Fisher batted through the morning session to add 118 in 39 overs with a degree of comfort which only increased the mystery as to how Surrey’s batters got into a tangle on the third day.
At 131, the partnership between Foakes and Fisher became a 10th-wicket record for Surrey against Warwickshire, beating the 130 by Bert Strudwick and Bill Hitch at Edgbaston in 1911.
At lunch, it stood at 141, 32 short of the county’s 10th-wicket best against anyone – 173 by Andy Ducat and Andy Sandham against Essex at Leyton in 1921.
They advanced to within 15 of the record when Fisher edged Ed Barnard to wicketkeeper Alex Davies.
Despite having just spent 178.2 overs in the field, Warwickshire enforced the follow on with a minimum of 43 overs left in the day.
Their bowlers no doubt led the sense of collective relief when, after just five of those overs, a terminal thunderstorm arrived.
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