Bell seals Warwickshire win

County Championship D1, Guildford, day four:
Warwickshire 537 & 207-3 beat Surrey 331 & 412 by seven wickets
Warwickshire 22 pts, Surrey 6

Match scorecard

Bell is looking more and more like a future England batsman

Warwickshire extended their lead at the top of Championship Division One as Ian Bell steered them to victory over Surrey at Guildford.

Bell followed his first innings 155 with 96 not out to see his side home by seven wickets.

Surrey were bowled out for 412 after resuming on 363-7 overnight, to leave the visitors a target of 207.

Mark Wagh and Nick Knight went early but Jonathan Trott (61) helped Bell add add as they cruised to 207-3.

Bell now has 895 runs from 10 Championship games at an average of 78, underlining his claims to be the next batsman in waiting for England.

But it was the Warwickshire bowlers who had an important job at the start of play as they tried to polish off the Surrey tail.

Tim Murtagh achieved his second first-class fifty but gave a return catch to Dougie Brown on 57 and Brad Hogg picked up his first success of the innings when Nayan Doshi was stumped for 18.

The final victim went to Naqqash Tahi, who made short work of last man Phil Sampson as he, Brown and Dewald Pretorius finished with three wickets each.

Warwickshire's run chase began badly when Wagh was bowled by James Ormond for four and Knight followed for 21 with Sampson the successful bowler.

But Bell and Trott met the mini-crisis confidently in a two and a quarter hour partnership which finally settled the outcome.

Bell hit a six and 11 fours, although he should have been dismissed on 69 when Doshi failed to hang onto a return catch.

Trott was caught behind off Rikki Clarke with the total on 175, but Bell carried on serenely in company with Michael Powell (12 not out) to clinch the team's fifth win of the season.

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Surrey: S A Newman, R Clarke, M R Ramprakash, A D Brown J N Batty (Capt), A J Hollioake, Azhar Mahmood, T J Murtagh J Ormond, P J Sampson, N D Doshi.

Warwickshire: N V Knight (Capt), M A Wagh, I R Bell, I J L Trott M J Powell, D R Brown, G B Hogg, T Frost, N Tahir A Richardson, D Pretorius.

Umpires: M J Harris, V A Holder.