Young bowlers Sunny Singh and Grant Thornton showed their quality as Warwickshire dominated their Specsavers County Championship draw with Somerset at Taunton.

The fast-improving Bears were denied victory only by the rain which took large swathes out of the match as they forced the home side to follow on the final day.

There was no time to turn their superiority into a victory but still plenty to reflect upon with satisfaction – not least the performances of Singh and Thornton.

Then in the second innings I was just told to try to bowl my best ball and if I got hit for four or six it didn’t matter because we were so far ahead in the game. It was brilliant to get Elgar out.

Sunny Singh

While 24-year-old Thornton took four for 34 in the first innings of his first-class debut, Singh marked his championship bow with two impressive spells – and a prestige scalp for his first wicket.

After delivering 15.4-1-35-0 in the first innings, the 21-year-old finished with 8-1-29-1 in the second, having opened the bowling and had South Africa Test star Dean Elgar caught by captain Ian Bell at short mid-wicket for a duck.

And Singh reflected that, after a few early nerves, he felt quite comfortable in championship cricket – helped by the immense experience around him in the Bears team.

“I was a little bit nervous in the first innings,” he said. “I just didn’t want to go for too many runs. It is a big step up playing against great players like Marcus Trescothick and, at first, he worked me around quite easily but I settled and had a couple of lbw shouts against him.

“Then in the second innings I was just told to try to bowl my best ball and if I got hit for four or six it didn’t matter because we were so far ahead in the game. It was brilliant to get Elgar out. The ball just turned a little bit on him and it is nice to have a ‘c Bell b Singh’ in the book!

“It was amazing to be in the dressing-room with people like Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott, Ian Westwood and Tim Ambrose. I can only learn a lot, on and off the field by being among them. And on the field it was great to have Jeetan Patel bowling at the other end. To see the way Jeets bowls, with such skill and aggression gave me confidence.

“It was just a shame about the rain that cost us the win. Without the bad weather we would probably have won with half a day to spare.”

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