Watson's double hundred puts Tremlett in the shade

Hampshire 576-6 dec Warwickshire 145-4 Essex win by 16 runs on Duckworth-Lewis method

Tremlett has aspirations to lose his England 12th-man tag, which has been his role throughout the Ashes series so far. However, during all his to-ing and fro-ing between country and county duties, he has taken just four wickets in three Championship matches.

His opening spell yesterday did not exactly wow the watchers or worry Warwickshire. His first over comprised a string of looseners. His second contained a wide long hop that was thrashed over point to the boundary and there was also a no-ball.

Tremlett's third over did get home pulses racing, briefly, as he began to pick up the pace and got one to rear up just short of a length. The Warwickshire opener Ian Westwood was only able to fend the ball to Jimmy Adams at third slip.

So he at least had a wicket, if not the selectors' vote. Unfortunately for the 6ft 7in bowler, who will be 24 tomorrow, the subsequent three overs of his spell were more notable for the runs they produced, leaving him with figures of 1 for 29. Perhaps it was nerves.

Thankfully, Tremlett redeemed himself somewhat in his second spell, claiming the wicket of Alex Loudon, caught at slip off a widish delivery. He also switched to bowling round the wicket to Nick Knight and looked a lot more awkward to handle.

Until then the Warwickshire captain had appeared untroubled against the potential England new boy, which will have interested a quartet of Australian batsmen all the more, since Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Simon Katich and Adam Gilchrist are all, like Knight, left-handers. Indeed, Knight was untroubled by the Hampshire attack full stop; it was bad light rather than bowling which stranded him just short of three figures.

Earlier in the day, Tremlett's Hampshire team-mate Shane Watson, who many feel deserves a call-up by Australia, underlined his talent with a maiden double hundred that helped Hampshire pile up the highest total on this ground by any team and only the second one past 500.

Watson and Dimitri Mascarenhas, who reached his hundred in the final over of the Hampshire innings, just a couple of balls after Watson arrived at 200. The pair were remorseless in adding an unbroken 234 for the seventh wicket and leaving Warwickshire, or rather Knight, with a huge workload to deal with.