County Championship (Day 3 of 4), at Edgbaston: Hampshire 141 (C R Woakes 7-20) & 416 (J M Vince 145, S M Ervine 63 W B Rankin 4-99) v Warwickshire 250 (C R Woakes 64, T R Ambrose 55 V Chopra 55) & 98 (J A Tomlinson 4-13)
Hampshire (19pts) beat Warwickshire (5pts) by 209 runs

WARWICKSHIRE took a big backward step in the championship race after an astonishing batting collapse hurried them to a 209-run defeat to bottom-of-the-table Hampshire.

Setting out in pursuit of 308 to win the Bears plummeted to 19 for five, with numbers two to six all bagging ducks, before meandering to 98 all out and defeat inside three days.

Never before in the club’s long history had five of the top six failed to score and the collective failure meant that a day which began with Warwickshire contemplating a vital victory ended with a defeat which left them 25 points behind leaders Lancashire, albeit with a game in hand.

But captain Jim Troughton insisted the batsmen were not exclusively to blame for the shock defeat bearing in mind that, earlier in the day, Hampshire had been allowed to stretch their second innings from an overnight 163 for four to 416.

“At the beginning of the day we were in a position to win the game but Hampshire batted very well,” Troughton said. “James Vince and Sean Ervine changed the game for them a little bit like Steven Croft and Karl Brown did when we played Lancashire at Liverpool.

"But whereas I think we bowled very well at Liverpool this time we missed a trick and didn’t bowl particularly well.

“The injury to Rikki Clarke didn’t help. That meant I had to bowl a few more overs out of guys who were not as fresh.

“But then fair play to Hampshire’s bowlers who bowled in great areas with the new ball. When we bowled we had seen there was still plenty of help for the new ball and this time we were on the receiving end but we have had teams in that position a lot of times this season.

“The second innings was very disappointing but the first should also have been bigger.

"We were looking to bat only once and should have been a bit more ruthless like we were against Sussex and Somerset. When you bowl a side out for 141 you should kill the game off.”

All-round it was a day to forget for Warwickshire but it could be argued that the bowlers, so impressive this season, were due an off-day. For the batsmen, a collectively productive day is overdue.

“Ideally we want to score big at the top of the order,” Troughton said. “Hopefully this is just a blip and we will put it right in the coming games.

“We were on the receiving end of some horrible results last season and have turned that round but generally this season we have been on top.”