A race for bonus points that started at snail’s pace in Hampshire’s first innings had a thrilling crescendo during the second afternoon as both sides benefited by claiming the maximum haul. Should Hampshire’s fight against relegation prove successful, there will be many who look back on a passage of play that saw them score 77 runs in 6.5 overs as a defining moment. Gareth Berg hit six boundaries in a nine-ball unbeaten 27.
Hampshire advanced from 219 for four from 78 overs overnight to 400 for nine declared from 108.5, achieving the maximum haul of five points with eight balls to spare. They later claimed one more point courtesy of four cheap wickets with the ball as the champions tottered. Adam Lyth and Gary Ballance fell for a two-ball duck and 30 respectively.
Berg, the all-rounder, finished the job brilliantly. He even hit four successive boundaries off James Middlebrook’s off-spinners but huge credit should go to Liam Dawson, whose 140 marked his seventh first-class century. Here was a right-hander who had not scored a century for two years and was loaned out to Essex earlier in the season, and this was an innings of two halves.
He started the day with 47 off 110 balls, and scored another 93 off 102. He and his fifth-wicket partner, Sean Ervine, upped the ante as they completed a century partnership after play started almost two hours late because of overnight and morning rain. By the time Ervine was stumped off Middlebrook for 43, the score was 305 for five in the 100th over. Even then – never mind at the start of day two – you would have got long odds on them reaching 400 inside the allotted 110 overs for the full quota of points for the first time this season.
Dawson went after a tired looking Yorkshire attack, for whom 17-year-old Matthew Fisher was the pick with two for 61, and the target became 46 off five overs. Over to Berg.
It was ironic Hampshire’s flurry of runs came after a lunchtime speech from Rod Bransgrove over the PA system as the ground’s main pavilion was named after their long-serving chairman, who turns 65 on Sunday. “I am hopeful and confident we will stage an Ashes Test in 2023, and we are going to give the championship a fair crack over the next five years. This is what has eluded us since I became chairman 15 years ago,” he said.
Yorkshire, chasing a record points haul in the two-divisional era, were boosted with five wickets inside the last 10 overs of the Hampshire innings as they secured a third bowling point immediately before the home declaration.
There was then some more bad news for Lyth. Just a few hours after it was announced he had been omitted from England’s Test squad for the Pakistan tour, he edged the second ball from Fidel Edwards to third slip. Ballance later miscued a pull at Ryan Stevenson to Berg at mid-wicket as Hampshire pressed ahead.
