Sunday mightn't have gone entirely to plan for Chris Woakes. In the absence of Chris Rushworth, Hassan Ali and the continuing omission of Liam Norwell, it was a welcome sight indeed to witness Woakes stride out with his Warwickshire teammates to the Edgbaston outfield at 11am on Sunday, with the bear and ragged staff on his chest. It's a beautiful day in Birmingham , the sort we've yearned for since spring.

It's clear and bright, but the temperature is steadily improving, too. Hampshire, visitors to Edgbaston this week, won the toss and chose to bat. Woakes is thrown the new ball and opens the bowling from the Birmingham End.

Bar a couple of T20 matches in recent times, it's been a little while since Birmingham's son was playing in his whites at a Test match venue, with a Duke's ball in hand, and challenging top order batters with swing and persistence. With a busy summer on home soil - exactly the conditions England tend to tap into Woakes' expertise in - it was imperative that he got some red ball action under his belt in order to prepare. This isn't merely any other Championship game for Woakes to utilise so that he could blow the cobwebs away, however.

This is his 100th First Class game for the Bears, a fine achievement and proud day for the Woakes clan in itself. It's been 16 years since he burst onto the scene as a sprightly teenager and ended the 2008 campaign with 42 First Class wickets at an average of 20.5.

In the previous 99 matches, Woakes had taken 364 wickets. J.