Surrey 396 (Foakes 125, Steel 71, Sibley 65, Smith 60, Barnard 5-66) beat Warwickshire 161 (Burgess 54, Roach 4-64, Worrall 3-34) and 138 (Worrall 5-25, Clark 4-26) by an innings and 97 runs

How's that for ruthless? By 10.45am on day three, Surrey had sewn up victory over Warwickshire by an innings and 97 runs. The three remaining wickets taking so little time folks had been nonetheless coming via the gates because the gamers had been lining as much as shake arms.

The brunt of the work had been finished on day two, with 17 Warwickshire wickets that means Tuesday's ask was a formality, which it proved to be. An eighth win of the season means Surrey will carry a lead of at the least 18 factors over challengers Essex into their penultimate match of the season towards Northamptonshire. And with all due respect to the aspect backside of Division One, it has all of the makings of a repeat of 2022's season finale. Victory over Yorkshire of their penultimate sport confirmed Championship glory, and historical past seems to be set to repeat itself.

"There's still a lot of cricket and Essex are a serious side," mentioned Foakes, whose 125, his third century of the season, helped Surrey to a surprisingly insurmountable first innings of 396. "They're probably more than likely to win their home games and they're always going to be on our tail. It's far from over."

It's an annoying quirk of the schedule that the frontrunners will solely play one another as soon as this season, which can also be the way it panned out with Surrey's closest challengers final summer season, Hampshire. Even from afar, past their rain-affected attract May, Surrey's seam towards Essex's spin has been an intriguing battle of types on their respective house patches.

"I think we were expecting the pitch to get even better for batting as the game went on, over the four days, and having had to bat first after losing the toss - I certainly didn't expect what happened yesterday, but it's pretty easy for me as captain when I've got a bowling attack as good as ours," Burns mentioned.

"It was good to have Kemar [Roach] back and Dan [Worrall] was exceptional. He's a real leader out there and a brilliant bowler with many skills. But I thought Jordan [Clark] also put in a really good performance in this match and there is a lot of excitement in this group about what is to come in the next few weeks."

For Warwickshire, such a chastening defeat requires perspective given the accidents to 2 first-choice batters (Rob Yates and Alex Davies), and the unavailability of Jacob Bethell and Liam Norwell. While their absences had been lined, with Kraigg Brathwaite parachuting in for the ultimate month of the season, the top end result, if not the efficiency, had some mitigation. After staying up by the pores and skin of their enamel on the final day of the 2022 season, they are going to take mid-table mediocrity.

"Dan Worrall was outstanding throughout the match and Jordan Clark too bowled extremely well but we came into this match a little bit light due to injuries and unavailability," head coach, Mark Robinson, mentioned. "Kraigg Brathwaite only arrived [from the West Indies} the day before this game, Ed Barnard had never batted at No. 3 before and Chris Benjamin has not had that much cricket in this format recently. But none of that is an excuse because we should be better than we have been. We still should have had more quality as a team than we showed here."

By stark distinction, Surrey didn't even need to put their new signing Sai Sudharsan into motion regardless of a handful of their gamers away on England obligation. His time will include Jamie Smith attributable to play within the ODI collection towards Ireland on the finish of September. The keeper-batter's call-up shall be to relaxation these on their solution to the World Cup, which incorporates the Surrey trio of Jason Roy, Sam Curran and Gus Atkinson.

Vithushan Ehantharajah is an affiliate editor at ESPNcricinfo