Will Smith registered a new career-best score of 210 to help Hampshire post 548/6 declared on the second day of their Specsavers County Championship match against Lancashire at the Ageas Bowl.
The hosts continued to make the most of a friendly batting wicket to deny Lancashire a single bowling point, before the Red Rose closed on 70/1 in response, with Haseeb Hameed (39*) and Luke Procter (21*) surviving an important final session after the early loss of Tom Smith.
Hampshire captain Smith led the way for his side with the second double-hundred of his first-class career, sharing a partnership worth 129 runs with Ryan McLaren (81*) for the fifth wicket to give the innings a degree of impetus after Hampshire registered a circumspect 276/1 on the first day.
Smith was forced to sleep on his 99 not out, but he hit the first ball of the day off Kyle Jarvis for his 14th boundary to register his first hundred of the summer in 285 deliveries. It took Lancashire 409 balls to take their first and only wicket on the first day and by contrast only 11 deliveries had passed when Tom Smith had Tom Alsop trapped lbw for his overnight score of 50 in the second over of the day.
Having added 89 runs with Alsop, Smith and Liam Dawson added another 39 runs in the morning session, although Dawson had an early shred of luck when a thick outside edge flew over the head of Steven Croft at second slip. Hampshire registered their third and final batting point in the 107th over, a modest return given the friendly nature of the wicket, with Lancashire only taking the third wicket seven balls after bonus points had stopped when Dawson lost his off-stump to Jordan Clark (2-63) at 319/3.
Lancashire attempted to resolve an over rate that at one stage made nervous viewing at minus five, but with Simon Kerrigan operating spin in tandem with skipper Croft, parity was soon restored by the visitors. Adam Wheater hit a quickfire 29 from 24 balls during his 44-run stand with Smith, before slapping a drive to Croft in the covers off Kerrigan (1-101).
Smith's 20th boundary took him to 150 shortly after lunch in 390 balls, with Hampshire starting to move with a little more intent in the afternoon session. McLaren and Smith assembled a partnership 129 runs inside 35 overs, with the latter hitting Jarvis for back-to-back boundaries in helping to register the hundred-partnership in only 164 balls.
The double-hundred followed for Smith soon after in 449 deliveries, with his 27th four taking him to a new career-best score. Eventually, the opening batsman's marathon came to an end when he mistimed a drive high into the air in the direction of Kerrigan at mid-off to give Croft (1-52) the prized scalp after Smith had batted for nearly nine and a half hours for his 210.
McLaren registered the fourth half-century of the innings and his fourth of the season in red-ball cricket in 106 balls, as Hampshire entered tea on 520/5. Saqib Mahmood (1-121) took the new ball immediately after the interval and, with the fourth ball of the session, forced Lewis McManus (18) to edge an attempted pull shot behind to Tom Moores to claim his maiden first-class wicket for Lancashire at 525/6.
Hampshire then declared on 548/6 immediately after McLaren had hit Mahmood for his second six, as the South-African all-rounder finished unbeaten on 81 to fall four runs short of equalling his best score this summer.
The early dismissal of Smith (4) in the seventh over made Hampshire's daunting first-innings total appear even more concerning for the visitors, but a sturdy resistance from Hameed and Procter ensured that Lancashire reached stumps without suffering any further setbacks. Smith's thin edge behind to McManus off Gareth Berg (1-26) left Lancashire with a potentially nervous end to the day, but teenage opener Hameed extinguished any nerves with three successive boundaries in the 11th over.
Hameed and Procter registered a fifty-partnership in 90 deliveries after the former had survived a dropped catch by Mason Crane at point when the opening batsman was only on 19. Lancashire ended the second day on 70/1, trailing Hampshire by 478 runs, with Hameed and Procter adding 58 runs for the unbroken second-wicket stand.
No comments:
Post a Comment