Hampshire Fall To Third Straight Championship Defeat

Apr 30 2010

Warwickshire vs. Hampshire
LV= County Championship Div 1
Edgbaston
Start: Tuesday 27 April 2010

Summary - Day Four
Warwickshire win by 8 wickets.
Hampshire: 283 & 176
Warwickshire: 382 & 80-2

Warwickshire beat Hampshire and the weather at Edgbaston to register their first LV= County Championship win of the season.

Neil Carter took 5-71 as the visitors were finally prised out for 176 in their second innings and the all-rounder then hit three fours and a six from 20 balls in the dash to an eight-wicket victory.

After losing more than two hours because of afternoon showers, Warwickshire were left with 32 overs in which to make 78, but with more rain threatening, they were in a hurry to finish the job.

Darren Maddy and Carter were both caught in the deep for 24, and after another short hold-up, captain Ian Westwood hit three consecutive fours as his side eased side home with 14.4 overs to spare.

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For the second time in less than a year seamers dominated a game at Edgbaston on a pitch that was expected to suit the spinners.

Steve Harmison and Graham Onions took 16 wickets for Durham last June and now Carter and Chris Woakes have shared 15 against a Hampshire side who have lost heir first three games for the first time since 1995.

With rain not far away, the home side began the final day needing to mop up Hampshire’s last five wickets as soon as possible.

Woakes gave them the ideal start when Nic Pothas attempted to force the 15th ball of the day and under-edged a catch to wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose for 23.

Only 12 runs ahead, Hampshire looked to Sean Ervine for a gesture of defiance and the last of the specialist batsmen did not let them down in making 59 from 90 balls.

As soon as Kabir Ali steered a catch to third slip off the persevering Carter, Ervine made it his business to protect his partners as the next two wickets held up Warwickshire for nearly an hour.

James Tomlinson and Danny Briggs faced 34 balls between them before both were held in the slips as Woakes bowled unchanged from the City End for 90 minutes.

Making the most of bounce and movement – a characteristic of the pitch in each of the morning sessions – the England Lions seamer took another step towards all-rounder status with six wickets and an unbeaten century in the match.

Ervine briefly challenged Woakes’ control with a pull over mid-wicket for six before 33 overs were lost to rain.

On the resumption, the Zimbabwean’s eighth four took him to a half-century during a stubborn last-wicket stand in which David Griffiths survived 32 balls.

Ervine was eventually last out when a swinging yorker dipped into his pads to give Carter a personal best match return of 9-130.

Day Three:

Summary - Day Three
Hampshire lead by 5 runs.
Hampshire: 283 and 104 - 5
Warwickshire: 382

Warwickshire’s push for their first victory of the season in LV= County Championship was halted by rain with Hampshire on the ropes at Edgbaston.

Having lost four wickets in 33 balls on the third morning, Hampshire needed a stand of 72 in 17 overs between James Vince and Nic Pothas to establish a slender lead before the weather closed in at lunch.

When Vince was out for 52, swinging across what proved to the last ball of the day, they were only five runs ahead with half the side gone for 104.

Even with 75 overs lost since bad light caused an early closure on the second day, Hampshire are still facing a third successive defeat after letting Warwickshire off the hook in the first innings.

Hampshire had reduced the deficit by three runs overnight and were soon in trouble as South Africa-born Neil Carter continued his excellent start to his 10th summer in county cricket.

The 35-year-old left-arm seamer has never taken more than 41 first-class wickets in a season but has bagged 20 in three matches this season.

Having shaken up Hampshire’s top order on the first day, he was back in the groove during a sustained spell of 3-35 in 11 overs.

Swing and seam secured his wickets in the space of nine balls. Michael Carberry and Neil McKenzie were snapped up at gully and second slip respectively, and Chris Benham was half-forward when given out lbw.

Woakes took the first wicket of the day - Jimmy Adams edged to Tim Ambrose for the second time in the match - and the last went to Imran Tahir when Vince was lbw to the leg-spinner’s ninth delivery.

Vince, who played for England in the Under-19 World Cup in January, was always positive with 10 fours in his second half-century in 10 championship games.

There were times when he rode his luck but he also produced some eye-catching shots while facing only 59 balls.

Pothas was a shade more circumspect, although he did hit three fours in reaching 21 not out, and much will depend on him when he begins the final day alongside Sean Ervine, the last of the recognised batsmen.

Day Two:

Summary - Day Two
Warwickshire lead by 96 runs.
Hampshire: 283 and 3 - 0
Warwickshire: 382
 

Chris Woakes targeted Hampshire for the second time in less than a year as Warwickshire turned a minor crisis into an unexpected advantage in their fluctuating LV= County Championship contest at Edgbaston.

Having posted a maiden century with 131 not out at the Rose Bowl last July, the England Lions seamer - and now aspiring all-rounder - improved on that with an unbeaten 136 in leading Warwickshire to a first-innings lead of 99.

This represented a huge shift from a dire position on the second morning. The home side lost four wickets for five runs and subsided to 98 for seven - still 185 short of Hampshire’s 283 - before the last three wickets yielded 284 runs.

Click above to watch highlights of Days 1 and 2

With the follow-on a real threat, Tim Ambrose began the recovery with 54 and Neil Carter weighed in with 62 - the 11th championship half-century of a career spent in the county’s lower order - during a partnership of 104 in 25 overs.

Woakes was still 23 short of his hundred when joined by number 11 Imran Tahir, but a fresh barrage of strokes, including two audacious drives over extra-cover off the flagging David Griffiths, took him to three figures in 161 balls.

When Warwickshire were finally prised out for 382, Woakes had hit 17 fours and two sixes from the 200 deliveries he faced.

Tahir, dropped on 19, contributed 40 to a last-wicket stand of 103 against his former county before he edged Sean Ervine behind.

For Hampshire it was a desperate turnaround after the early damage done by Kabir Ali and Griffiths with the new ball.

The only good news was that their openers, Michael Carberry and Jimmy Adams, successfully negotiated three overs, chopping three runs off the deficit, before bad light ended play for the day.

Warwickshire’s early troubles began with two wickets in four balls for Kabir in the third over after the resumption on 45 for one.

Late movement accounted for Darren Maddy and Jonathan Trott registered his fourth single-figure score in five innings when he attempted to play through midwicket but found only second slip.

Ian Bell and Rikki Clarke, both trying to force the pace, followed in successive overs from Griffiths, and, after a brief lull, Kabir cut through Jim Troughton’s defence with a swinging, full-length delivery.

Hampshire may have thought their job was almost done when Ant Botha was caught behind off James Tomlinson, but Ambrose rediscovered form and confidence with nine fours until flailing a short ball from Griffiths to Carberry at third man.

Carter was typically forceful, clumping eight fours and a six before he pulled a long hop from Griffiths to long-leg, but Hampshire were sentenced to further toil when Carberry, at point, dropped a sitter from Tahir.

Day One:

Summary - Day One
Hampshire lead by 238 runs.
Hampshire: 283
Warwickshire: 45 - 1

Half-centuries from Michael Carberry and Sean Ervine boosted the Hampshire innings in their LV= County Championship meeting with fellow early-season strugglers Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

Carberry guided his side through a difficult first session before departing for 74 – his fifth successive score of 50 or more against Warwickshire – and Ervine led a counter-attack with 70 in a hard-earned total of 283.

The contest was well balanced when the home side closed on 45 for one, trailing by 238, after losing captain Ian Westwood in Kabir Ali’s second over.

Both teams went into the match having lost their first two games in Division One, and Warwickshire attempted to get their campaign back on track by leaving out a seamer and playing two spinners.

This placed a heavy workload on Neil Carter as the 35-year-old delivered 23 overs to take 4-59, including three of the four wickets that tumbled before lunch.

Only Carberry looked remotely comfortable. Fresh from a century in the last match against Durham, the left-hander pulled Chris Woakes for six on his way to 50 from 81 balls but only one of his first four partners reached double figures.

Jimmy Adams, playing defensively from the crease, and Chris Benham, lbw at 18 for two, went in Carter’s prolonged first spell and Darren Maddy removed Neil McKenzie for his first Championship wicket in a year.

The former Leicestershire all-rounder missed most of last season with a damaged knee and then suffered serious facial injuries when hit by a bouncer while batting on a pre-season trip to South Africa.

Having begun his comeback with a score of 252 in a Second XI match against MCC Young Cricketers last week, he made his first contribution in the county team as a bowler when Jonathan Trott held a slip chance from McKenzie.

Carter made his figures 3-28 with another lbw decision against James Vince, and soon after lunch Hampshire had lost half their side for 120 when Carberry, after hitting 11 fours, was caught at mid-on attempting to pull Woakes.

A brief interlude of spin from Imran Tahir and Ant Botha came to nothing as Nic Pothas, with 47, put on 80 with Ervine, but when the wicketkeeper fell to a one-handed slip catch by Rikki Clarke, a lot of responsibility rested with a vulnerable lower order.

Kabir Ali responded with a useful 16 before becoming Carter’s fourth victim and Hampshire finally crumbled with the reappearance of Tahir.

In his first match against his former county, the leg-spinner dismissed Ervine and Danny Briggs in the same over and also took the catch at mid-on when James Tomlinson was last out to Woakes.

The first sign of turn from Tahir accounted for Ervine, edging to slip after collecting 10 boundaries.

Text used courtesy of the ECB website.