Rain brings early end at Utilita Bowl after Ben Brown's 162

Ben Brown reached his third-highest Rothesay County Championship score as Hampshire and Durham's clash inevitably ended in a draw.

Brown ended up on 162, three shy of his first-class best, as Matthew Potts and Codi Yusuf shared seven wickets to bowl Hampshire out with a deficit of 41.

Alex Lees and Emilio Gay put on 61 around frequent rain breaks before hands were shaken on the assured the result at 15:50 BST - only 20 wickets have fallen across four days.

Hampshire remain unbeaten, and move up to fifth having taken 12 points from the fixture, while Durham are three points of them in the table, with 13 points received from the draw and bonus points.

Any chance of the match not meandering towards a certain draw was a day of quick scoring and quick wickets.

Kyle Abbott only faced one ball, as he watched his off stump get catapulted by one that kept low from Potts - who was named in the England Test squad to face Zimbabwe.

Ben Brown had gone in at 143 overnight, but his final day aim seemed solely to be keeping Durham in the field as long as possible, with Brad Wheal equally happy to play along.

Brown reached 150 for the seventh time of his career in 257 balls but failed to score a single boundary in the 34 balls he faced on day four.

Wheal did strike two fours - well connecting with a pull and cover drive - but time in the middle was a more important factor to Hampshire's approach than the runs scored.

South African loanee Yusuf earned the rewards for Durham's 155 over toil as he suddenly found some extravagant in-swing to extract Brown for 162.

The fast bowler then pinned Sonny Baker to end up with three for 83, with wholehearted Potts returning four for 84 in his 29 overs.

Hampshire were bowled out for 470, with an irrelevant first-innings deficit of 41.

The use of the heavy roller between innings made sure that the occasional moments of lower bounce would not be a problem in the third innings.

Spinner Liam Dawson opened the bowling with Kyle Abbott in a nine over stint before lunch. Abbott bowled three maidens from his four overs, demonstrating both his accuracy and Alex Lees and Emilio Gay's resolution to keep their wickets.

Three overs have been lost in a 15 minute delay before lunch and bad light and more rain after the interval killed an hour - and lobbed another 11 overs - before the inevitable shaking of hands.

Off spinners Felix Organ and Tom Prest took over the bowling as things turned into a glorified net session for Lees and Gay, before another rain break kyboshed the action - with Durham unbeaten against Hampshire since 2015.