Terry: There are no excuses

8:15pm Friday 18th July 2008

CLOSE: Hampshire (257 & 127-7) are 42 runs behind Sussex (426)

Hampshire manager Paul Terry admitted his side's latest batting collapse was inexcusable.

After following on 169 runs behind Sussex's 426, Hampshire lost five wickets for 26 runs before closing on 127-7 at Arundel.

Relegation back to the second division of the LV County Championship beckons, and Terry admitted: "We've had a lot of disappointments this season but there are no excuses for this one.

"We're playing on a half-decent wicket but we have to hold out hands up - as a group we're just not doing well enough.

"I can't criticise our bowlers but we have also dropped catches that might have restricted them to 350 and are not quite there in a lot of aspects of our game.

"That's because of a lack of confidence as much as anything."

A fourth Championship defeat of the season is inevitable after Hampshire's top-order fell away in worryingly limp fashion after tea.

The unlikely figure of 6ft 5in off-spinner Ollie Rayner left Hampshire's second innings in tatters during eight alarming overs as he claimed a career-best 4 for 49.

If it was not for Greg Lamb's first Championship half-century for three years in Hampshire's first innings, this match would already be over.

And Lamb could have gone twice before finishing unbeaten on 54 as Hampshire were bowled out for 257, 20 runs shy of the total needed to avoid the follow-on.

Hampshire's post-Shane Warne struggles are depressingly familiar but there was some drama soon after they had resumed on 131-5.

Flashpoints between Hampshire and Sussex are not uncommon and Nic Pothas clashed with Chris Adams during the morning session after the Sussex captain claimed he had caught Lamb at first slip.

Square-leg umpire Jeff Evans had not seen whether the ball had carried and left Lamb to decide whether he wanted to take Adams' word for it.

Pothas indicated to Lamb from the non-striker's end that the ball had not been caught cleanly and then waved Adams away after the Sussex captain had confronted him.

Lamb was on 18 when he escaped again. After being sent back by Pothas, he would have been run out by several yards if Jason Lewry had not missed the stumps.

Lamb showed admirable stoicism after that and so did Pothas (41), who was eventually snared by a crackerjack leg-cutter from Robin Martin-Jenkins as Sussex went about enforcing the follow-on.

Pothas was on 24* in Hampshire's second innings at the close of the penultimate day, but with the visitors still 42 runs behind, defeat is unavoidable.

Confidence is threadbare throughout the Hampshire top-order and Michael Carberry (1) is suffering more than anyone.

The left-hander was out to a carbon-copy of his first-innings dismissal, edging a defensive push against Jason Lewry to a diving Matt Prior as Hampshire followed on.

With just 17 runs from his last five innings following a pair against Lancashire last week, Carberry is struggling to build on the rave reviews he earned for his England Lions performances this year.

Hampshire would still have been hopeful of escaping from this match with a draw at tea but Martin-Jenkins sparked the dramatic collapse when Michael Brown (28) edged behind in the sixth over of the final session.

Brown was the first to fall as Hampshire slumped from 58-1 to 84-6 during a blink-and-you-miss-it half an hour.

Michael Lumb (2) and John Crawley (28) were beaten by Rayner's arm ball in successive overs from the German-born 22-year-old and then Sean Ervine (14) sliced the off-spinner to backward point.

Having started the collapse, Martin-Jenkins finished it when Liam Dawson (1) was trapped lbw on the back foot.

Dawson has impressed in this match but will want to forget yesterday ever happened as the first two first-class innings of his career were over within six hours of each other.

Having swept well in his second innings, Lamb (19) also departed for a second time when he top-edged a sweep against Rayner to deep square leg as the Sussex spinner claimed his maiden first-class four-wicket haul.

Bad light ensured the extra half hour was not taken but it merely delayed the inevitable.