Hants on top against unbeaten Lancs (From Daily Echo)

Hants on top against unbeaten Lancs

7:20pm Thursday 29th July 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

CLOSE - Lancashire are 262-8 (Mahmood 9*, Kerrigan 3*)

Despite a century for West Indies star Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Hampshire enjoyed the best of the first day of their LV= County Championship match against unbeaten Lancashire.

Lancashire, the only county yet to lose a Championship match this season, closed on 262-8 with Dominic Cork taking 2-48 against his former county and David Balcombe (2-63) and Danny Briggs (2-54) impressing once again.

If it was not for Chanderpaul contributing 118 in only his second match for the county (he made 92 on debut against his former Durham teammates last week), Lancashire really would be in the mire.

They were reduced to 127-5 after winning the toss, before a sixth-wicket stand of 77 between Chanderpaul and Luke Sutton restored some respectability.

In the absence of Nic Pothas, Michael Bates took four catches on his Championship debut.

Hampshire are also without Dimi Mascarenhas and Kabir Ali for the rest of the season but Lancashire have injury problems of their own.

Batsman Stephen Moore is probably out for the season after dislocating his shoulder in Lancashire’s Friends Provident t20 quarter-final defeat at Essex on Monday night. And Luke Proctor was injured in the pre-match warm up.

The wicket used for this match is not the green top on which Hampshire beat Kent inside three days at The Rose Bowl in their last Championship outing three weeks ago.

But Hampshire bowled impressively on a flat deck.

James Tomlinson made the first breakthrough during a tidy opening spell (6-3-8-1). He found some shape away from the left-handed Tom Smith (2), whose outside edge handed Bates a regulation first Championship catch.

After pulling David Balcombe for six, Paul Horton (21) slashed to second slip, where Neil McKenzie took an excellent, high one-handed catch.

Three overs later, former Lancashire captain Mark Chilton edged a defensive prod against Sean Ervine to Bates.

Steven Croft survived a huge appeal for caught behind from Balcombe just before lunch.

Diving across first slip, Bates missed a difficult chance when Croft got an audible edge against Balcombe midway through the afternoon session.

But Croft (41) had only added ten runs when he played on attempting to drive Danny Briggs.

Briggs also dismissed Gareth Cross (4), who is playing his first Championship match for four years, caught at the wicket by Bates.

But Chanderpaul’s scalp still eluded Hampshire.

At the Rose Bowl last September, the unorthodox left-hander became one of Briggs’s first Championship victims, when he was bowled for just four.

It was Cork who eventually dismissed Chanderpaul but not before the veteran southpaw had made the 54th first-class hundred of his career, from 180 balls.

James Vince held on to two catches at first slip after tea to see off Sutton (29) and Glenn Chapple (9), who had been bowled off a no-ball by former Lancashire teammate Cork’s previous delivery.

With the sheen off the second new ball, Cork claimed his second wicket when Chanderpaul, having batted for nearly five hours, edged to Bates.

Still in Twenty20 mode, Saj Mahmood drove Tomlinson for six as the shadows lengthened, but Hampshire finished the day the happier.