Warwickshire County Cricket Club in 2005
Ground Edgbaston Cricket Ground Website Captain Nick Knight Squad Overseas player Heath Streak Others Moeen Ali James Anyon Ian Bell Dougie Brown Neil Carter Tony Frost Ashley Giles Alex Loudon Tom Mees Trevor Penney Keith Piper Michael Powell Dewald Pretorius Adam Shantry Naqqash Tahir Jonathan Trott Jim Troughton Mark Wagh Nick Warren Ian Westwood Benefit Dougie Brown Warwickshire County Cricket Club start 2005 as defending county champions and 11–4 favourites to retain their title.
They then beat Cambridge UCCE by 18 runs in an MCC University match, before trouncing title rivals Hampshire by ten wickets at home inside two days.
Their fine first-class form continued, as they won their third County Championship match in style at Gloucestershire, but they were thumped by Kent in the next game, hampered by a groin injury to Heath Streak.
Rain cancelled the National League match with Leicestershire, meaning that Warwickshire still trailed the promotion places by two points, and their loss to Sussex the following day did not help.
The Scot Dougie Brown was the pick of the bowlers, taking four for 59 as the visitors crumbled to 184, rescued somewhat by a run-a-ball 34 from off-spinner Shaun Udal who batted at nine.
However, a magnificent spell from Zimbabwean all-rounder Heath Streak, who took four wickets for 11 from nine overs, including five maidens, reduced Hampshire to 34 for 5 before Michael Brown and Sean Ervine rebuilt.
Despite fine bowling from Harbhajan Singh, who was making his Surrey debut, the Warwickshire batsmen held up well with Michael Powell and Alex Loudon putting on an unbeaten partnership of 131 to see them safe on 222 for 3 at close.
Only medium-pacer Neil Saker, playing in his seventh List-A game, avoided the routing as he was hit for 17 off five overs, taking the wicket of Jonathan Trott for 9.
Streak limpered off in his fifth over with a groin injury, leaving all-rounder Alex Loudon and Carter to do the brunt of the bowling, and they were woefully ineffective against Kent's batting line-up.
In the twenty overs remaining on the third day, Andrew Hall dug out two wickets for Kent, including England Test batsman Ian Bell for a duck.
A disciplined Warwickshire fielding effort – the Bears only conceded one extra – and Alex Loudon taking five for 33, resulted in Glamorgan falling to 151 all out in 18.2 overs.
Jamie Troughton's 51 rescued Warwickshire Bears from a potentially tricky situation at 56 for 4, and quick hitting from Dougie Brown along with eleven extras gave the hosts a total of 169 for 9.
Glamorgan started well, with Sourav Ganguly and Matthew Elliott lifting them to 88 for 1 before leaving in quick succession to Neil Carter and Jonathan Trott respectively.
The Northamptonshire reply was stifled by some reasonably economical bowling, with no regular bowler conceding more than eight an over, and good fielding which yielded one run out and stopped the boundaries.
(Cricinfo scorecard) Match tied (D/L Method); Surrey won 4–3 in a bowl-out and progress to the Semi-Finals of the Twenty20 Cup In an incredible finish to the knock-out quarter-final between Surrey Lions and Warwickshire Bears, the match was tied, so the players had to resort to a bowl-off – cricket's version of a penalty shootout, in which five players have two attempts at bowling at unguarded stumps, and if the stumps fall down, that was one point for their team.
Warwickshire's bowling, which lacked an injured Heath Streak, also suffered, and despite excellent figures of six for 92 from Alex Loudon the Nottinghamshire batsmen ran away with it as Darren Bicknell, Jason Gallian and Australian David Hussey all made fifties.
Ending with five for 32, he took the first five wickets of the innings as Kent collapsed to 29 for 5, but South Africans Justin Kemp and Martin van Jaarsveld rebuilt quickly.
In reply, Warwickshire got to 19 for 0, but a fiery spell from Martin Saggers yielded three wickets, as Nick Knight, Ian Bell and Jamie Troughton were all dismissed in single figures.
His unbeaten 95, along with 27 not out from Luke Parker, saw Warwickshire pass the target with three wickets to spare, despite Middlesex' slow over rate, which caused them to be deducted half a point.
However, their blunt bowling attack were shown up again, as Ian Westwood recorded his maiden first-class century, four batsmen passed fifty, and Warwickshire muscled their way to 545 for 7 before declaring.
Earlier, Sussex pacer Rana Naved-ul-Hasan had made inroads with three wickets for 25, and it was only the 73-run partnership between Alex Loudon and Michael Powell that got Warwickshire past 100.
However, Zimbabwean Murray Goodwin scored a solid, two-hour 86 not out, and guided the team to the target, putting on 82 with Robin Martin-Jenkins after spinner Alex Loudon had taken two wickets to set Sussex back to 91 for 5.
The third day saw a total of sixteen wickets fall, as Sussex came back to dismiss Warwickshire for a low score after giving up a 47-run lead on first innings.
Goodwin made 150, his fourth century of the season, as Sussex scored 428, while most of the Warwickshire bowlers got wickets but conceded plenty of runs in the process.
Then, Rana set out to repair his poor first innings effort, taking four wickets in 15 overs as Warwickshire could only muster 180 – and that was mostly thanks to a 50-run partnership between Trevor Frost and Brown.
Then, Jonathan Trott and Ian Westwood fell in quick succession, leaving Jamie Troughton to try and tie together a match-saving innings with the lower order.
Shane Watson effectively stopped that, having Dougie Brown and Ashley Giles out bowled, leaving Warwickshire to hit about 20 runs in the last over.
However, Troughton had added 144 with Jonathan Trott, and not even four late wickets from Rikki Clarke could stop the flow of runs, and both Jade Dernbach and Azhar Mahmood conceded 61 in their nine overs.
Fraser Watts and Ian Stanger both hit half-centuries for Scotland, as the Saltires made their way to 177 for 1, and despite two wickets from Jamie Anyon and the golden duck from West Indian Vasbert Drakes, the Scots ended on 220 for 5.
Off spinner Alex Loudon then celebrated his call-up to the England team to tour Pakistan the following winter by taking six for 66 as Gloucestershire were bowled out for 229.
