Hampshire prepare for Royal London final with comfortable Nottinghamshire win

Hampshire have won three of their opening four Championship matches this season and took 22 points from this fixture to move to within two points of early pacesetters Somerset

Newport (fourth day of four): Hampshire 310 & 367-5, Nottinghamshire 239 & 194 - Hampshire won by 244 runs

Scorecard

Hampshire kept Somerset under pressure at the top of Division One of the Specsavers County Championship as they recorded a comfortable 244-run victory over Nottinghamshire on the Isle of Wight.

Hampshire’s seam attack of Fidel Edwards, Keith Barker and Kyle Abbott did the brunt of the work with three wickets apiece, and ended with figures of three for 37, three for 42 and three for 46.

Hampshire have won three of their opening four Championship matches this season and took 22 points from this fixture to move to within two points of early pacesetters Somerset, who they will face in the Royal London One Day Cup final at Lord’s on Saturday.

On the other side of the coin, Nottinghamshire haven’t won a first-class match since June last year – a run that extends to 12 games.

They claimed four bonus points from the match to go alongside their draw and two defeats so far in 2019.

Hampshire started the day needing eight wickets for victory in a minimum of 96 overs, having dismissed both Nottinghamshire openers in a tricky 15-over spell following their declaration the previous evening.

The sun shone again at Newclose, as it had done for the majority of four glorious days on the other side of the Solent, on a wicket which had increasingly flattened.

Night-watchman Matt Carter only lasted until the fifth over of the final day before he was lbw to Keith Barker.

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Left-armer Barker would then have dismissed Joe Clarke for a duck, only for Kyle Abbott to spill a chance at mid-on. However, Abbott soon atoned for his error, finding the edge of Clarke’s bat three balls later, with wicketkeeper Tom Alsop completing the catch.

Chris Nash had shown plenty of fight in the morning session to reach a third Championship half-century of the season.

His most sturdy partnership was with Jake Libby, with the pair blocking out 16 overs.

But 10 minutes before lunch, Libby departed when he ballooned a delivery from Edwards to short leg.

Wickets began to flow much more freely after the interval; Nash was trapped in front by Abbott for 60 and Tom Moores soon followed in identical style soon afterwards.

Steven Mullaney was handed a life when he edged Mason Crane to Ajinkya Rahane at first slip, only for the Indian batsman to shell the opportunity.

Mullaney and Luke Fletcher held up proceedings for just over half an hour before Barker clipped the Nottinghamshire captain’s off-stump.

Stuart Broad edged Edwards to Rahane at first slip before the result was ratified at 3.10pm when Mason Crane found Jake Ball’s leading edge to Aneurin Donald at cover.

Courtesy of the ECB reporters network