ALEX Davies admits it was criminal Warwickshire slipped to a second successive County Championship defeat after a second innings collapse helped Essex to a four-wicket win at the County Ground.
Warwickshire’s captain found runs hard to come by as he scored 19 in the first innings before departing for a duck in the second innings.
And Davies insists Warwickshire’s top order must look at themselves with the county now winless in six County Championship matches this season.
Davies said: “It’s a difficult one to take, it’s our own doing, being 235 ahead going into the second innings, it’s criminal to lose a game from that position.
“As a top order unit we’ve got to seriously look at ourselves, we’ve been 50-5 in both innings on a pitch that you should never be.
“We were just in no position to enforce the follow-on, lots of factors combined, we’ve got a lot of injuries and we just can’t afford to risk more injuries.
“If we bat to half of our ability we put 500 on the board, regardless of the decision, we batted very poorly and we can’t expect others to bail us out twice in a game.
“We can reflect on this, put it behind us and go to Old Trafford really hard looking for a result, it’s a fixture we can definitely target, they’ve struggled a little bit this year.”
Warwickshire recovered from 64-5 to post 397 all out as a stunning 209-run seventh-wicket partnership between Ed Barnard (165) and Michael Burgess (108) put the Bears on top.
And the visitors put some early pressure on Essex, restricting the visitors to 77-6 as the Bears took a flurry of wickets.
Jordan Cox (47) top scored for Essex as debutant Che Simmons (3-12) starred with the ball along with Rob Yates (3-27), Ollie Hannon-Dalby and Michael Rae (both 2-38).
The Bears opted not to enforce the follow-on and, despite the best efforts of opener Yates (28), only three other batters posted double figure scores.
Warwickshire found themselves in trouble on 12-3 and were soon 73-8 before Essex eventually bowled them out for just 94.
However, despite the collapse, Warwickshire still had a 329-run lead as Essex began their second innings.
And the Bears restricted Essex to 65-3 only for Cox (112) and Matt Critchley (99 not out) to guide the home side to victory with four wickets to spare as debutants Rae (3-86) and Simmons (2-59) impressed again with the ball.
Warwickshire continue their County Championship campaign against Lancashire at Old Trafford from May 24 to 27.
