Hampshire Hawks(202-6) beat Worcestershire Royals (201-8) by four wickets with 13 balls to spare

Michael Brown kept Hampshire in the Friends Provident Trophy with a career-best performance under the Rose Bowl floodlights.

The Hampshire Hawks looked set to be dumped out of the competition when they slumped to 65-6 in pursuit of the 202 runs needed to beat the Worcestershire Royals.

But Brown (96*) and Dimitri Mascarenhas (56*) put on an unbroken stand of 137 in 31 overs - a Hampshire seventh-wicket record against Worcestershire - to complete a dramatic victory with 13 balls to spare.

It was a sensational effort against a strong Worcestershire attack including Simon Jones, who hit the 91mph mark during a devastating opening spell that left Hampshire up against it.

Brown was playing only the 12th one-day match of his career but produced the heroics needed to set up a mouth-watering Bank Holiday weekend for Hawks fans.

Hampshire play back-to-back south-west group matches, against leaders Gloucestershire in Bristol on Sunday and bottom-of-the table Glamorgan at the Rose Bowl the following day.

They need to win both to have a chance of qualifying for the FP Trophy quarter-finals but for now Brown is savouring one of the best nights of his career.

"Winning beer always tastes nicer than losing beer - roll on Sunday against Gloucestershire!", said the 28-year-old, who faced 127 balls and batted for nearly three hours before receiving his man-of-the-match magnum of champagne from Hampshire director of cricket Tim Tremlett.

Brown, who hit the winning run against Gareth Andrew, said: "In a way it was just like opening the batting in a four dayer. When you lose early wickets like we did there's no point in going hari-kari and being 80 all out.

"I saw there were 35 overs left and thought if I scored 70 we'd win the game without having to do anything stupid. I picked off what I could.

"The wicket here is always difficult to go in and smote the ball straight away but was pretty good once we were in.

"Dimi talked me through it and we kept going. We knew that if we didn't get out we'd win the game.

"Four an over on a ground as big as the Rose Bowl is not that big a target if you run hard and get the odd four. They only had one spinner to take the pace off it and the quicker bowlers came on to the bat nicely."

Brown added: "It was only my second game under floodlights and I just loved being out there. I haven't batted much in the middle order before so that kept me alert and the fact I've been more involved recently kept me relaxed."

Brown and Mascarenhas arrived at the crease after Jones had Jimmy Adams caught at second slip and Greg Lamb pinned lbw in successive deliveries during a nightmare 17th over for the Hawks.

They played intelligently from the start. Brown continued his outstanding Championship form - he leads the division one run charts - with an expertly constructed innings that contained ten fours.

He had taken three catches, including a leg-side take to dismiss Kabir Ali, as Hampshire's stand-in wicketkeeper in the absence of Nic Pothas.

And Mascarenhas's unbeaten 56 (89 balls, four fours) was also the culmination of an excellent all-round performance.

The captain led by example with bat and ball by following up his haul of 3-37 with a vital half century.

With home debutant Hamza Riazuddin next in, Mascarenhas and Brown did not shirk the responsibility of rescuing Hampshire from what had seemed a lost cause.

Worcestershire fast bowler Steve Magoffin, Mascarenhas's Melville CC teammate in Perth, uprooted Michael Lumb's leg stump and held a return catch to see of Sean Ervine (24) during Hampshire's top-order slide.

And after Michael Carberry had failed to trouble the scorers an ill-judged call by Chris Benham (5) and a good throw from Kabir Ali from fine-leg resulted in a run out after the Hampshire batsman returned for a third.

But it was not the only top-order collapse of a dramatic game.

After Hampshire had won the toss, Worcestershire were reduced to 66-6 in the 18th over.

Hamza Riazuddin rushed from Berkshire's Bradfield College, where he retook a PE A-level yesterday morning, to make his home debut.

But he showed no sign of nerves in front of the Sky Sports cameras.

He and Mascarenhas both swung the new white ball in dismissing the top-order batsmen who shone in Worcestershire's nine-wicket win against the Hawks at New Road nine days earlier.

An impressive Chris Tremlett spell included the big wicket of Graeme Hick and Billy Taylor also starred with ten tidy overs.

Hampshire also fielded well.

Benham held on to a stunning low catch at cover to see off Ben Smith and Tremlett provided a catch-of-the-season contender - a full-length dive on the run at long off - to end a brave Gareth Batty (52) innings.

Gareth Andrew (30*) and an unbeaten 22-ball 24 from Magoffin then helped set Hampshire a challenging total on a good cricket wicket.

But they had no answer to Brown and Mascarenhas.

Hampshire bowling: Mascarenhas 10-2-37-3, Riazuddin 6-0-15-1, Tremlett 10-1-44-2, Ervine 4-0-29-0, Taylor 10-0-24-0, Lamb 10-0-38-2

Worcestershire bowling: Kabir Ali 9-0-57-1, Magoffin 10-1-31-2, Jones 10-3-38-2, Andrew 7.5-0-41-0, Batty 8-0-26-0, Mitchell 3-0-9-0