JIMMY ADAMS and James Tomlinson, two of Hampshire's rising young cricket stars, produced stunning performances for their respective university sides in the season's opening county warm-up matches.

Adams hit centuries in each innings to help Loughborough UCCE draw against Kent's first XI at Canterbury, while left-arm pace bowler Tomlinson took seven Somerset wickets in his debut appearance for Cardiff.

The Hampshire youngsters were playing for the first time for their respective University Cricket Centres of Excellence and will return to the Rose Bowl after completing their first year examinations in mid-June.

Adams, a 21-year old Winchester-based left-hander, made 103 and 113 in the three-day drawn match against Kent.

"It was quite an amazing way to start the season," said Adams, who began his human biology degree course at Loughborough last autumn.

Adams scored a cussed first innings century after Kent had piled up a towering 443-6. His 103, which included 12 fours, contributed almost half the Loughborough total of 213.

"I had a bit of luck and was dropped a couple of times - once when I was 97 - but I felt I batted with much more fluidity when we followed on," he said.

Adams cracked 18 fours in a superb second innings 113 - a performance which dented any prospect Kent had of going into Friday's County Championship opener against Hampshire with a victory under their belts.

Loughborough's second innings response of 331-8 owed much to a century second-wicket partnership between Adams and Hampshire 2nd XI teammate John Francis, who made 48.

Adams, who played for England under-19s in 2000, reckons the winter break he took away from cricket did him the power of good.

Tomlinson, like Adams a member of Hampshire's Second XI Championship-winning team last summer, took five wickets - seven in all - in his first left-arm bowl for Cardiff UCCE against Somerset at Millfield School, near Street.

"I got both Piran Holloway and Ian Blackwell twice in the match, and also dismissed their skipper Michael Burns and Keith Dutch, which was nice," said Tomlinson, 19, relishing first innings figures of 5-104.

But Tomlinson, whose development as a left-arm pace bowler has been evidenced in the past two years of Southern Electric Premier League cricket at South Wilts, was more interested in talking about his batting.

"I scored 30 not out in our first innings - and that's a career best for me by a mile," he joked after Cardiff's eventual 221-run defeat.