Warwickshire shut the door tight on Sussex's hopes of retaining the Championship as the county endured more Edgbaston misery.

Sussex's wait for a Championship win in Birmingham will now extend into a 23rd year after Warwickshire's eighth wicket pair Tony Frost and Heath Streak denied them the victory which would have kept the title race open.

When Dougie Brown was seventh out just before tea, Sussex were still four runs ahead and must have fancied their chances of a third successive win. Instead they suffered the first known case of Frost-bite in the last week of August.

Frost is out of contract at the end of the season but, after battling through the final session, he can probably name his own price. By escaping with a draw here, Warwickshire have left themselves needing just 20 points from their last two games to clinch their first title since 1995.

Any team whose leading wicket-taker only has 28 victims clearly has some flaws but, statistically, Warwickshire have enjoyed the most successful season with the bat in the history of the Championship.

You might not have thought so when they were 15-3 and then 132-7 but Frost and Streak played with real determination to preserve their side's unbeaten four-day record in an unbroken stand of 73 from 29 overs. The handshakes came when there were seven overs left.

It must have been agony for skipper Chris Adams and his side as their hopes of retaining their title slipped away after tea.

They tried everything to break the partnership but, apart from a couple of leg-before shouts against Streak by James Kirtley, they did not look like getting another wicket. How crucial the loss of 52 overs on the first two days to rain turned out to be.

Adams could not have asked for more from his attack. The odd ball kept low but a desperately slow pitch did not deteriorate to the extent everyone expected and wickets had to be earned.

After declaring on their overnight 482-9, Sussex needed early successes and Kirtley and Mohammad Akram duly obliged. Kirtley claimed the 500th of his career when his fifth ball knocked over Mark Wagh's leg stump before a fired-up Akram struck twice in three deliveries, uprooting Ian Bell's off pole with one which didn't bounce before Jonathan Trott could only fend a nasty lifter to gully. All three batsmen had failed to score.

Ian Ward shelled a hard chance at second slip off Akram when Nick Knight was on 15 and Warwickshire's captain made the most of that reprieve, adding 51 with his predecessor Michael Powell and, more importantly, occupying the crease for 28 overs.

But after lunch Knight wasted two-and-a-quarter hours of good work when he got an under-edge onto his stumps aiming an ambitious cut at Mushtaq Ahmed and for the next two hours you sensed another Warwickshire wicket was never too far away.

Akram returned to defeat Powell with a shooter, Jim Troughton turned a ball from Robin Martin-Jenkins straight to square leg and Dougie Brown, having lashed the previous delivery to the boundary, was caught behind aiming another huge wipe at Mushtaq.

But it must give some comfort to a captain when your No. 9 has a Test hundred to his name and Streak grew in confidence. Frost, who made 135 not out at Horsham in May, has given Sussex trouble before and all that Adams and his men tried came to nought.