Tony has given a full account of the opening two days of the championship at Headingley and the annihilation of Hampshire's attack, such as it was, before lunch yesterday. Rarely, if ever, have I seen county bowlers serve up such dross and collectively eleven players look as though they would prefer to be anywhere but out on the field. What puzzled me was Vince's reluctance to use his senior bowlers choosing to use Will Smith and young Alsop as the cannon fodder. During the morning's play McLaren, 128 overs in just four games in last year's championship, bowled only four overs while Yorkshire scored 323 runs and Ervine, 125 overs in 2015, managed just six deliveries, albeit costing eleven runs. Add in Wood and Dawson's injuries and you are left with a very toothless attack
For any Hampshire supporters braving the cold of the last couple of days it must all have been a very depressing experience and their local paper, The Echo, offers little in the way of comfort on its website for the injury list extends way beyond Wood and Dawson to include Topley (hand), Berg(knee), Stevenson (back) and Adams(ankle). Bring on the youngsters? Perhaps not, for scrolling further down the Echo's website we find
Hants 2nds collapse against Surrey pace ace
an account of the first day of a three day friendly against Surrey at The Ageas Bowl
Scores: Surrey II 400 for 4, Bradley Erasmus 136 not out, Gary Wilson 96 and in reply Hampshire II 45 for 7 , Matt Dunn 5 for 8.
Not many crumbs of comfort for Dale Benkenstein in that lot and his close of play comments published on the website are perhaps couched in milder tones than he might have used in the dressing room at lunchtime, 'It has not been an easy two days for us'......we now have to try and salvage as much as we can out of the game'. The salvage operation begins at 11:00 with little or no hope of the weather coming to Hants' rescue for the forecast is for a warmer and sunnier day, time to get ready.
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