Hampshire star Jimmy Adams hit his first Twenty20 century – after being inspired by Kevin Pietersen’s brief masterclass.

Pietersen hit Chris Tremlett for three fours in four balls after being struck by a bouncer from the former Hampshire fast bowler.

Adams watched the England batsman from the non-striker’s end and went on to hit an unbeaten 101 after Pietersen holed out for 15.

“That over when KP went after Chris, I haven’t seen ball striking like that,” said Adams.

“It was unbelievable. I thought ‘crikey, here we go’.

“It didn’t quite happen but it was great to have him back."

Adams reached his hundred, from 64 balls, in bizarre fashion.

He was on 99 when he tried to smash a second Jade Dernbach beamer for six midway through the final over of the Hampshire innings.

But he was heading back to the pavilion when Matt Spreigel caught him on the long-on boundary – only to do a U-turn and celebrate his ton when a no-ball was signalled.

Adams said: “I tried to plant it into the crowd and didn’t get enough on it so was egging the ball on.

“It didn’t make it but by that time I was a happy man because I didn’t expect to get 99, never mind a hundred.

“I was just about to go but Slug (Sean Ervine) shouted after me and I turned round to see they were a bit stroppy.”

Dernbach was immediately forced out of the attack for bowling one beamer too many and Andrew Symonds completed the over – which ended with Hampshire celebrating their fourth highest total in the competition.

“As a batting unit we’ve been a bit low on runs in this competition (Hampshire had not scored more than 120 in their first three games) but today it was a nice wicket with a short boundary and we managed to get a score that just proved enough,” continued Adams.

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