County Championship, Division One: Troughton Finds Form As Leaders Pile on the Runs

Warwickshire have had the happy knack all season long of finding at least one batsman to make runs and help them to a big first-innings total and bags of batting points. Until yesterday that had not included Jim Troughton.

The 25-year-old had had a wretched season. Eleven innings had brought only 314 runs and for the past two months he had sat on the sidelines while Warwickshire lorded it at the top of the table.

However, during that time Troughton got a taste for making runs at Bristol - a century with the second XI - and yesterday, with Ian Bell away with England and Brad Hogg back with Australia, he used the experience to dig the leaders out of trouble when they lost two wickets in two balls and were 38 for three.

Mark Wagh had clouted James Averis to backward square leg and Michael Powell had just fended Jon Lewis to second slip when Troughton walked to the wicket. When he left, 228 balls later, Warwickshire were on 300 for seven.

His 120 included 19 fours and a five. More importantly for his confidence it was his first century since May last year, when he made the same score against Kent and was about to become a member of the England one-day squad.

Initially yesterday's innings was not a pretty thing. Attempted hooks steepled over the wicketkeeper's head and mistimed pulls fell in open spaces. Nevertheless by lunch, with Jonathan Trott gone, caught behind off Mark Hardinges for 21, Troughton and Dougie Brown were going along at four an over.

That accelerated to six as the Gloucestershire attack struggled to cope with a blustery wind. Eight overs after lunch from the Ashley Down End -shared by Hardinges and Roger Sillence, each playing their first championship match of the season - went for 56 while Lewis, with the elements behind him, conceded only 24.

The 100 partnership - the 27th in the season for Warwickshire, breaking the 14-year-old championship record - came up in 22 overs. Both batsmen were strongest square of the wicket and both were bearing down on centuries when Brown slashed to point and was picked up by Mike Hussey nine short of his third hundred in four games.

Their stand was worth 182 and at 260 for five Warwickshire seemed set for yet another haul of maximum batting points, until the game was stood on its head.

Tony Frost, another of the eight Warwickshire batsmen to make centuries this year, went cheaply and Ian Fisher, shouldering the burden of the wind, nipped in for three wickets in 13 balls, conceding only three runs.

Troughton, 10 minutes short of five hours at the crease, attempted to glide the spinner to fine leg and was taken by Craig Spearman, running around from slip, Neil Carter cut to backward point two balls later without scoring, and Heath Streak ballooned to slip while attempting to sweep.

A last-wicket stand of 37 between Naqaash Tahir and Dewald Pretorius gave the leaders their fourth batting point, but when Pretorius slashed Lewis to Philip Weston in the gully Warwickshire were 50 short of making 400 in the first innings for the 11th consecutive match.