What it boils down to

Ashley Giles and Allan Donald are both asserting that Warwickshire will be positive and go for broke against Essex at Chelmsford but what it boils down to, as far as I can work out, is that if Warwickshire draw with full bonus points they will be promoted barring a bizarre combination of results, including their own defeat to Glamorgan (in which case they wouldn't deserve to go up), in the final games.

Therefore, with a pragmatic hat on, it could be argued that if they score 400 in the first dig against Essex it's job done, so there is a case for selecting the XI: Westwood, Poonia, Trott, Maddy, Troughton, Frost, Clarke, Ambrose, Botha, Salisbury, Woakes.

Let's hope for a better outcome than when Warwickshire visited Chelmsford in 1991 and they were thrashed by nine wickets - not helped, it must be said, by Allan Donald achieving the rare championship feat of getting himself run out in both innings.