Smith offers brief distraction

Warwickshire 472 Hampshire 302 & 120-3

Thursday's record-breaking last-wicket stand looked to have assumed match-winning proportions for Warwickshire as Hampshire failed to reach the total necessary to avoid the follow-on, despite their captain and former England batsman Robin Smith achieving a notable career milestone. After losing their first two second-innings wickets for 45 yesterday evening, the threat of rapid decline loomed over Hampshire for a while but Smith and Derek Kenway then combined to at least provide a chance to grind out a draw, before the latter fell at 110.

Smith joined the honoured ranks of batsmen who have made more than 25,000 first-class runs when he leg-glanced a ball from Melvyn Betts for four during the fifth over yesterday morning. The 38-year-old South African, who made his debut for Natal in 1980, two years before his first Championship appearance for Hampshire, is the 117th to amass this total and shares the achievement with only Graeme Hick, Mark Waugh and Kim Barnett among current players. So far, he has made 60 first-class centuries, nine of those in Test matches, and maintains an average above 40.

That apart, there was not enough about Hampshire's batting that was worthy of note and Warwickshire, whose return to the First Division of the Championship began with two defeats, will have only themselves to blame should they fail to reverse the pattern, assuming that bad weather does not come to the aid of their opponents.

Three down for 89 overnight, with an uphill task after the great deed performed by Nick Knight and Alan Richardson in their 214-run 10th wicket epic, Hampshire always feared that John Crawley's England recall would be to their detriment and were proved right in the face of disciplined bowling from the home side.

Ashley Giles, whose release from England duty has been to Warwickshire's benefit, made the day's first important breakthrough with a ball that made Smith stretch and went to Shaun Pollock at slip off the outside edge. When Dougie Brown splattered Lawrence Prittipaul's stumps in the next over, the ball keeping a shade low, Hampshire were five down and still more than 300 adrift.

Warwickshire's progress was arrested by Neil Johnson and Nic Pothas in a stand of 87 for the sixth wicket. But Johnson, having reached 79, was beaten for pace by Betts, who saw Dmitri Mascarenhas caught off a leading edge in the same over. Pothas recorded his first half-century in the Championship before Richardson, bowling with the second new ball, uprooted his off stump. Thanks to Shaun Udal's bold hitting, Hampshire gained an extra point but ended 170 in arrears.