SHANE Warne blamed the cold weather for Hampshire's failure to finish off Kent at Canterbury on Saturday.

Kent denied the Hampshire the chance to top the county championship's first division by finishing on 447-9 - and holding on to a draw.

Warne said: "If we were eskimos or if we weren't so cold and freezing we probably would have won, but it was so cold.

"None of the guys have ever experienced anything like that. You couldn't feel your hands or your fingers and I don't know how I landed one ball, let alone 37 overs.

"If it had been sunny I like to think we would have won, but you have to give credit to Kent, they hung on well at the end."

Warne had set Kent 485 to win but saw Amjad Khan help Min Patel hold on at the end.

He added: "I wanted a little bit more at the last pair than three overs but we made some big runs - and I couldn't have declared any earlier.

"If I had they might even have got the runs, given how flat the wicket ended up being. The declaration was a team decision and proved to be the right one.

"Both sides were scoring at nearly five an over for the whole match and one decent partnership from them would have been difficult to stop.

"They were only 30 short and at the end and I was even thinking of giving them 20 runs in no balls to make them go for it!"