Two members of Hampshire’s C & G Trophy-winning team, Greg Lamb and Kevin Latouf, have been released.

Off-spinner Lamb began the season as a regular in the Hampshire side following the departures of Shane Warne and Shaun Udal.

But the 27-year-old has not played a Championship match since the arrival of Imran Tahir, whose desire to return to Hampshire – and Liam Dawson’s rapid progress – proved to be the beginning of the end of the Zimbabwean’s career at the Rose Bowl.

On his day, Lamb is a big spinner of the ball but he can also be expensive. He took 13 first-class wickets at 66.61 for Hampshire, eight of them in this year’s LV County Championship – at 71.37 apiece – after being handed his debut in 2004.

He made eight of his 22 first-class appearances for Hampshire this year and in his last Championship outing, against Sussex at Arundel in July, he hit his first half-century since 2005 to finish with 684 first-class runs for the county at 21.37.

Only Nic Pothas has made more than Lamb’s 38 Twenty20 Cup appearances for the Hawks but the highlights of his career were in conventional limited-overs cricket.

In 2005, the season he helped the Hawks win the C & G Trophy, Lamb scored his only senior Hampshire hundred in a 45-over match against the Northamptonshire Steelbacks at the Rose Bowl.

He made three NatWest Pro40 appearances as recently as last month.

After being told of his release, Lamb said: “I’m disappointed but I expected it. I’ll put my name out to other counties and see what I get back.”

Like Lamb, 23-year-old Latouf won the second XI Trophy twice with Hampshire, most recently against Essex at Chelmsford last week.

He was still a teenager when his fielding helped the Hawks win the C & G Trophy, the county’s first silverware for 13 years.

Nine of his 11 one-day appearances for Hampshire were in 2005 and included the C & G Trophy semi-final and final, which was effectively over when he held on to a stunning catch on the square-leg boundary to dismiss Warwickshire captain Nick Knight.

But he did not make any Twenty20 or Championship appearances for Hampshire and his sole first-class outing was against Loughborough UCCE two years ago.

The former Barton Peveril College student had an unsuccessful trial with Warwickshire last month.

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