Petersen and Hameed shine on third day against Hampshire

Alviro Petersen (98) and Haseeb Hameed (89) both came close to making centuries on the third day of Lancashire's Specsavers County Championship match against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl.

Lancashire cut the deficit to 238 runs by the end of Day Three in posting 310/4, with Hameed and Luke Procter (54) sharing their second hundred-partnership in two attempts, as three of Lancashire's batsmen made half-centuries. Steven Croft (41*) was close to achieving a fifty of his own by the time stumps arrived, but the draw now looks the favourite result heading into the final day.

Procter made his third half-century of the season in sharing 119 runs with Hameed, losing his wicket to the final ball of the opening session. Hameed came close to registering his third hundred of the summer, although he did manage to reach 1,000 first-class runs in only his 23rd innings for the Red Rose county.

With only three wickets falling on the penultimate day - and ten wickets across the first three days - the match will almost certainly conclude in a high-scoring draw, after both of Hameed and Petersen made the most of a featherbed wicket to pass fifty for the seventh time this season.

A circumspect opening session saw Lancashire add 61 runs, with both Hameed and Procter passing fifty before the lunch interval. It took Hameed 24 deliveries to hit his first runs of the day when he steered a boundary down to third man, before eventually progressing to his half-century in 147 balls. Hameed and Procter followed up their century-stand in the second innings against Durham at Southport with another confident partnership, ensuring that Lancashire made the most of the friendly batting conditions on offer.

Back-to-back boundaries saw Hameed's fifty immediately followed by the hundred-partnership in 254 deliveries, as Lancashire consolidated a strong start into a solid platform to launch their response to Hampshire's mammoth score of 548/6 dec. Procter - who hit a century his in his last red-ball innings for Lancashire at Southport - made his third fifty of the summer, with the left-handed batsman going on to make three-figures the last two times he had got to a half-century.

However, with three balls to go before lunch, Procter was judged lbw to part-time spinner Will Smith, who followed up a career-best double-hundred in Hampshire's innings with a wicket on the cusp of the interval. Hameed and Petersen added the first fifty runs of their 85-run stand in 104 balls, with the former reaching 1,000 first-class career runs in the afternoon session at the age of just 19.

After scoring hundreds against Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire this season, Hameed threatened to register a third century on what continued to be an exhausting wicket for the bowling side. The teenage opener batted with a determination that made him an impenetrable foe, that is until the Bolton-batsman left a delivery from Gareth Berg (2-48) and was bowled for 89 after batting for over four hours.

Petersen mimicked Hameed by passing fifty for the seventh time in the Championship this season, with his half-century coming at a much brisker pace of 83 balls, helping Lancashire to reach 229/3 at tea. Croft then secured a fifty-partnership with Petersen in 88 deliveries when he swept Liam Dawson for a huge six over square-leg.

Needing 21 runs from five overs to post 300 inside 110 overs, Lancashire scored two runs in the four overs that followed, falling 17 runs short of a third batting point by the time bonus points stopped. The Red Rose passed the 300-run mark 4.2 overs too late, but their disappointment was compounded when Petersen fell two runs shy of his third century of the summer when he was bowled by Dawson (1-55).

Petersen fell with a handful of overs left in the day - a gorgeous day in Southampton - when Dawson managed to get one to turn sharply onto the leg-stump behind the legs of the South-African batsman, ending his 84-run partnership with the Lancashire skipper. Croft negated the final few overs to finish the day unbeaten on 41, with nightwatchman Simon Kerrigan (3*) assisting his resistance in the depths of the evening session.