Durham post their highest ever score against Hampshire

Hampshire spent a day in the warm sunshine at Riverside near Chester-le-Street as Durham posted their highest ever Innings score agaist their visitors, and Martin Love the highest individual score in contests between the two sides. Paul Terry the watching manager saw his record of 162 against Durham at Portsmouth in 1994 swamped by the Aussie.

Robin Smith, Nic Pothas and Alan Mullally all returned to Frizzell Championship action against Durham after various absences, with Chris Tremlett rested, and James Tomlinson replacing James Bruce in the line up. The day started brightly for Hampshire, despite losing the toss when Alan Mullally, James Tomlinson and Dimitri Mascarenhas each took a wicket to reduce Durham to 73 for 3 wickets, but that is where their early success ended as Australian Martin Love and Gary Pratt got together as the shine and bounce of the new ball faded.

Together they shared 161 runs for the fourth wicket, before the latter fell lbw to Mascarenhas. Ashley Thorpe joined in and with Love added a further 81.

A day of toil ended with the admirable Mascarenhas taking three of the seven wickets to fall, and Alan Mullally playing his first championship match for 4 weeks taking two.