Hants climb out of relegation zone

7:22pm Friday 8th August 2008

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Hampshire (236 & 108-0) bt Yorkshire (236 & 107) by ten wickets

Points: Hampshire (18), Yorkshire (4)

Hampshire climbed out of the relegation zone with a convincing first LV County Championship win at the Rose Bowl for a year.

A dramatic day that began with Yorkshire slight favourites ended with a ten-wicket victory for Hampshire with more than four sessions to spare.

The match was delicately poised when Yorkshire began their second innings at the start of the third day with the scores level.

When Yorkshire openers Andrew Gale and Chris Taylor raced to 45-0 during the first half hour no one would have considered a Hampshire win within the next four hours.

But that is exactly what happened. Yorkshire were bowled out for 107 and Michael Carberry (53*) and Michael Brown (46*) chased down the runs at more than four an over with no alarms.

Home debutant Imran Tahir triggered the Yorkshire collapse.

He bowled left-hander Gale through the gate with the fifth ball of his first over, the tenth of the innings, and then trapped Yorkshire captain Anthony McGrath lbw with his flipper.

Yorkshire panicked and James Tomlinson capitalised after switching to the Pavilion End.

Having bowled two overs for 17 runs with the new ball from the Northern End, Tomlinson responded with two wickets in as many balls at the beginning of his second spell.

A back-of-a-length away swinger found left-hander Jacques Rudolph's outside edge and with his next ball Tomlinson pinned Adam Lyth with a delivery that skidded straight on.

Gerard Brophy was brilliantly caught by a diving Pothas to become Tomlinson's 50th Championship victim of a glorious summer before Adil Rashid was also caught behind.

A healthy Rose Bowl crowd was then treated to two more sightings of Tahir's exuberant wicket-taking celebration, which is reminiscent of the Italian striker Marco Tardelli when he scored against West Germany in the 1982 World Cup final.

Another flipper did for Chris Taylor and Yorkshire were on the ropes when left-hander David Wainwright was lbw offering no shot to a leg-break.

David Balcombe finished Yorkshire off by taking the last two wickets either side of lunch as the visitors were skittled for their lowest score against Hampshire for 37 years.

Matthew Hoggard knows a thing or two abut away swing but that did not stop him getting a nick to become the 17th wicket to fall in two sessions.

And Hampshire needed just 108 to win after Rana Naved sliced a wide delivery from Balcombe to backward point.

Carberry and Brown made short work of the target.

Matthew Hoggard showed why he is no longer an England player and Rashid, Yorkshire's first-innings hero with a career-best 7-107, was out-bowled by Tahir in the second innings.

Too many long hops were cut ferociously by Carberry and Brown, who showed no mercy as Yorkshire replaced Hampshire in the bottom two.

Batting on the same track on which he scored his only hundred of the season, for the England Lions against New Zealand in May, Carberry cheekily reverse swept slow left-armer David Wainwright for fours.

He confirmed his return to form and that there was nothing wrong with the pitch, despite the clatter of wickets, by following each one with driven boundaries.

Carberry reached his second Championship fifty of the season from just 78 balls before scoring the winning run.

Hampshire bowling: Tremlett 8-1-28-0, Tomlinson 8-1-31-4, Mascarenhas 2-0-5-0, Tahir 11-1-37-4, Balcombe 1.1-1-2

Yorkshie bowling: Hoggard 4-0-25-0, Naved 5-1-7-0, Rashid 9-0-37-0, Kruis 2-0-7-0, Wainwright 4.1-0-26-0