Dominic Cork’s four wicket haul give Hampshire the edge over Lancashire

Hampshire’s captain, Dominic Cork, took four wickets to restrict Lancashire to 328 all-out in a match of the County Championship Division One, at The Rose Bowl, Southampton in England.

The first day of play on Tuesday, May 24, 2011 was called off by the umpires with the fall of the final wicket in the visitors’ innings.

Mark Chilton, who is the skipper of Lancashire, won the toss and elected to bat first on a bright sunny day.

The pitch was hard and dry and there was no assistance for the bowlers in it, which made it easier for Chilton to make the decision of batting first.

However, he would have liked his team to score at least more than 400 in order to pressurise the opposition.

The start to the Lancashire innings was a dismal one, as they lost opening batsman, Paul Horton in the very first over of the game. He managed only five runs in his short stay at the crease and the visitors were one down for just six runs on the board.

Horton’s opening partner, Stephen Moore, looked solid in the middle, but was unable to capitalise on the start to his innings. He was the second wicket to fall in the day after adding 18 runs to the total.

Lancashire’s captain was not in a good touch either and gave his wicket away after a struggling innings of seven runs from 31 deliveries. His downfall saw the team struggling at 65 for three.

However, first-drop batsman, Karl Brown, was given good support by Steven Croft, as the pair constructed a century partnership for the fourth wicket. The latter was unable to make most of the start he got to his innings and was dismissed after scoring 37 runs.

Brown was in an impressive touch though, as he was timing the ball nicely and didn’t find any problems in facing the bowlers. He missed out on a century however, and got out for 96 runs.

The stylish first-drop player struck 14 fours in his innings and deserved a century, but just lost concentration for a moment, costing him his wicket.

The middle-order player, Tom Smith, failed to get going and was sent back to the pavilion after scoring just 17 runs and the visitors were struggling at 196 for the loss of six batsmen.

However, cameos of 28, 32 and 38 from lower-order batsmen, Gareth Cross, Sajid Mahmood and Kyle Hoggrespectively guided Lancashire’s total above 300.

Cork was in instrumental touch, picking up four wickets in the innings and got very good support from David Griffiths, who sent three batsmen back to the pavilion.