Any lingering hopes that Somerset Sabres had of avoiding the drop to the second division of the NUL National League were dashed on Sunday at the County Ground when they were comfortably beaten by Warwickshire Bears

After winning the toss and batting first Somerset Sabres got off to a poor start when once again they lost early wickets.

A welcome return to form by skipper Jamie Cox was a bright spot amidst the falling wickets, and when he was out for 64 with the score on 109 for 5 he had faced 85 balls and scored 8x4's.

Once Cox had departed Ian Blackwell took on the scoring mantle and hit 51 before he was the eighth wicket to fall. Uncharacteristically the left hander played a somewhat restrained innings, batting for 94 minutes and facing 67 balls and hitting one six and 3x4's.

By the time Steffan Jones was caught by Dominic Ostler in the 44th over the Sabres had recovered to an almost respectable score of 188.

The Bears made a swift reply and had reached 64 in the tenth over before Nick Knight, who had been missed twice earlier was bowled by Steffan Jones.

Shaun Pollock, who was returning for the Bears after spending time playing for South Africa quickly got into his stride, but lost the services of Mark Wagh with the score on 75, when he was caught by Keith Parsons off Keith Dutch.

In Dominic Ostler he found a willing ally and the pair brought the hundred up in the nineteenth over.

Ostler and Pollock both appeared untroubled by the Sabres bowlers and cruised to their target sharing an unbeaten third wicket partnership of 116 in 20 overs.

When Ostler hit the winning runs with ten overs to secure an eight wicket victory he was unbeaten on 77, with Pollock not out on 43.

At the end of the game Jamie Cox told me: "This result was disappointing on two counts. We thought that we had scored enough runs on the day, and then they came out and attacked us and got them easily. The other huge disappointment is that we are now going to be playing in the second division next season."

He continued: "The reality is that we haven't played well enough to stay up. We haven't often been able to put our best side and have had to shield our bowlers. We have lost games that we should have won against Yorkshire and Glamorgan, and have got into a losing rut that we just haven't been able to get out of."

Somerset coach Kevin Shine told me: "This was another disappointment to us, and it now means that we are going down. We have got to get to grips with the white ball game and try to see where we are going wrong with it. We just haven't been able to get any batting momentum in this competition , and this is an area that we have got to work on."

© SOMERSET