Westwood happy for Bears to be in Championship hunt

Warwickshire head coach Ian Westwood says he is pleased to be "in the hunt" for the County Championship title at the halfway stage of the season.

The Bears are fourth in Division One, only five points behind leaders Essex, after two wins, four draws and one defeat in their seven matches so far.

In a congested table, nine points separate Essex from defending champions Nottinghamshire in fifth, with eighth-placed Glamorgan only four points further back and 18 off the top.

"It's really tight and I've said all along that it's a really, really tough league," Westwood told BBC Radio WM.

"There's some excellent teams who, on their day or any given match, if they get ahead in the game, can make it really difficult for you. So you can't take anything for granted.

"There's some teams playing well and winning games but we just want to be in the hunt so I think it's important for us to keep that momentum going."

Warwickshire seemed to be heading for defeat after two days of their last red-ball match against Yorkshire at Scarborough but batted out the final day to secure a gutsy draw in a performance Westwood described as showing "so much character".

After the home side racked up scores of 469 and 246-6 declared, the Bears were set an unlikely 453 to win on the final day before slipping to 93-4 early on.

But Sam Hain (69), captain Ed Barnard (58), all-rounder Beau Webster (49) and debutant Manav Suthar (37) saw them to safety with two wickets intact .

"I think lots of teams there would have fallen away, the conditions were tricky [we] had to show a lot of skill, the ball turning out the rough on a pitch that was wearing and going a bit up and down," Westwood said.

"We wore a few on the body and showed a lot of skill and character to get through in the end."

He added that he "couldn't put a finger" on the inconsistency of his side's performance over the four days but said it was "one of those things".

Warwickshire are back in action against Somerset at Taunton starting on Friday before the resumption of the T20 Blast a week later.

The Bears are likely to be without former England all-rounder Chris Woakes who, although has played in all six Blast games so far, has not featured in the County Championship since late April.

"I don't think we'll be seeing Woakesy [for Somerset]," Westwood said. "He's been sore for quite a while. He's had a jab this week to try and help him out, so we'll see how he goes, but he wouldn't have had much bowling apart from the four overs here and there in T20.

"Tommo's [Jordan Thompson] really unlucky to miss out [against Yorkshire], we've got Nathan Gilchrist bowling well in the second team, so we've got options."