HAMPSHIRE are out of the Royal London One-Day Cup after losing a thrilling quarter-final to Gloucestershire at Bristol.

When rain reduced the tie to 34 overs a side, Jimmy Adams’ 99-ball 97 and Will Smith’s 24-ball 50 ensured Hampshire recovered from the early loss of Michael Carberry and Adam Wheater to make 217-7.

But Fidel Edwards and Yasir Arafat, Hampshire’s two most experienced bowlers, combined to concede 36 off two overs during a dramatic denouement as Gloucestershire chased the runs down with four wickets and an over to spare.

They have a semi-final away to Yorkshire or Essex to look forward to after a poor display from Hampshire with the ball.

It had looked so much better for the visitors at the interval following their positive response to the loss of Carberry (0) and Wheater (1) within eight balls of losing the toss.

Adams was back to his best on his 100th one-day appearance and Smith produced a classic one-day cameo, full of improvised strokes, that saw 77 runs scored off the last six overs.

Adams shared stands of 68 with James Vince (31) and 50 with Liam Dawson (21) before he was denied a deserved century after failing to beat Fuller’s throw to the wicketkeeper from long-on as he chased a second run.

Smith was dropped twice by Hamish Marshall in the latter stages of his enterprising knock and reached a brilliant half-century before Marshall atoned by catching him at long-on off the final ball of the innings.

But Michael Klinger was outstanding in his first game after three weeks out with a hamstring injury.

Former Hampshire captain Adams missed a sharp chance at point to catch the Gloucestershire captain before he had scored the first of his 87 runs.

But Chris Dent fell cheaply to Edwards and Gareth Roderick (12), Hamish Marshall (9) and Benny Howell (9) contributed only 30 runs between them.

When Howell fell in the 21st over Gloucestershire were 104-4 and Hampshire were on top.

But Geraint Jones helped Klinger add 59 in 8.1 overs as the skies darkened before Yasir Arafat struck what appeared the key blow in the 29th over.

Gloucestershire had just edged ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis target when Klinger skied to Adams at cover, with 55 still needed off 33 balls.

Then Edwards conceded five wides followed by three boundaries as 19 came off the 30th over.

With four overs left Gloucestershire required 32. Jack Taylor (7-1-30-1), having been the pick of either attack with his off-spin (he claimed the big scalp of Vince) hit 16 off the last three balls of the next over.

He launched Arafat over long-on for two successive sixes and a four en route to a 17-ball 34. Wood responded by conceding only four off the next over. When Taylor was caught in the deep with 11 required off 11 deliveries, Hampshire still had faint hope of another late twist.

But after a succession of singles, Jones finished the match by hitting Arafat for six over long-on.

Adams said: “We let ourselves down in the field after doing a decent job with the bat. Will Smith played brilliantly to give us momentum at the end of our innings and we were happy enough at the halfway stage.

“It would have been nice if I had hung onto the chance the chance offered by Maxie (Michael Klinger) really early in their innings. But we still got ourselves ahead of the game and couldn’t quite nail our skills at the end.

“The positive is that we still have so much to play for this season, both in T20 Finals Day on Saturday and in our remaining Championship games.”

Hampshire bowling: Wood 6-0-27-1, Edwards 6-0-50-1, Berg 6-1-37-0 , Yasir Arafat 7-0-56-3, Dawson 7-0-33-1, Ervine 1-0-9-0