Varun Chopra believes that four wins from the last five games could see Warwickshire retain their championship title after their resurgence continued with a dominant display against Division One leaders Yorkshire at Leeds last week.
Only final-day rain prevented the Bears recording a third successive win to propel them towards next week’s tussle with Somerset at Edgbaston.
That rain at Headingley dealt Warwickshire a big blow as they can ill-afford to drop points as they play catch-up after their moderate first half of the season.
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But they are certainly still in the race. And Chopra, who led the side impressively while Jim Troughton was sidelined by a back injury, reckons it is a race they can win if they win four of their remaining games, at home to Somerset and Sussex, away to Nottinghamshire, at home to Surrey and away to Derbyshire.
“The last round of games was not bad for us at all with Sussex and Durham losing,” Chopra said. “It could have been better, but we are still doing okay with some good momemtum behind us.
“We are starting to play good cricket. Since we beat Middlesex at Uxbridge we have been really strong and hopefully that will continue in the last five games.
“I have not really looked at the fixtures and who plays who, but we have got five games to play and we know we will have to win at least three of them, probably four, to have a chance.
“I don’t think there will be many dead games around, which is what having two divisions does, and that’s great. We would love to be the front-runners but we have to come from behind this season and hopefully we can do that.”
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Their YB40 and T20 campaigns having failed to ignite this season, it is all about the championship from now on for the Bears and in the last three matches, they have played the sort of cricket that made them champions in 2012.
All the more galling, then, to force a winning position against in-form Yorkshire only for rain to ruin it.
“We were in a strong position,” Chopra said. “We took a little bit of time to get into the game but then started day three really strongly and from there we never really looked back.
“Our lower order proved that it was a good cricket wicket with no demons in it. Laurie Evans, Keith Barker and Jeetan Patel applied themselves really well and we ended up getting a little bit of a lead.
“We would have fancied that chase after tea on the last day. That’s sometimes how you play championship cricket, to win the game in the last session, and we had given ourselves that opportunity.
“So it was a bit frustrating but there’s nothing you can do about the weather and we just have to kick on again next time.
“I enjoyed captaining the side very much. It was a good challenge and I learned a lot from it and hopefully it will stand me in good stead for the future.
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“In a way I think it will help us being out of contention in the YB40. All our eggs are in one basket with the championship. That is our priority and we will pick teams accordingly.”
Chopra is sure to be one of the key men in the run-in. His runs from the top of the order have become the Bears’ linchpin in all forms of cricket, so the club was delighted when he recently signed a new three-year deal, binding him to the club until the end of the 2016 season.
Since arriving from Essex in 2009, the 26-year-old has advanced deep into the thoughts of the England selectors courtesy of sheer weight of runs.
He has scored more than 1,000 championship runs in each of the last two seasons and is well on the way there again this time.
It is highly likely that, at some point during the course of his new contract with his county, Chopra will make his senior debut for his country. He would love that to happen, but knows he must just keep churning out runs for the Bears and see where that takes him. He has the ability to play at the top level and, just as importantly, appears to have the temperament, so it is far from out of the question that, at some point, England’s top five could include three Bears – Chopra, Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell.
That would certainly make life no easier for Warwickshire director of cricket Dougie Brown. But he is just delighted to see Chopra going from strength to strength – and committed to keep doing it for the Bears.
“Varun has been an instrumental member of the team since joining from Essex four years ago,” Brown said. “He has a proven record of scoring big runs in all formats of the game and is a great role model for all youngsters to aspire to.
“Securing a player as highly thought of as him for the next three years is a massive boost.”