Dawson continues his all-round success

Hampshire 280 for 7 (Dawson 67, Smith 65) beat Warwickshire 184 for 9 (Chopra 49, Dawson 3-34) by 23 runs (DLS method)
Scorecard

Hampshire returned to winning ways in Group B of the Royal London Cup with a 23-run Duckworth-Lewis victory over Warwickshire in a rain-damaged contest at Edgbaston.

Comfortably beaten by Essex the previous day, Hampshire responded by compiling a meaty 280 for 7 built around a century stand by Liam Dawson and Will Smith.

They then reduced the home side to 4 for 2 and those early wickets proved crucial by cranking the Duckworth-Lewis equation right up when rain came.

Facing a thrice-amended target of 208 from 31 overs, Warwickshire, resuming on 101 for 2 from 26.1 had to go for broke and Dawson took advantage, completing his excellent day with 3 for 34.

The win gave Hampshire a big step towards the quarter-finals but defeat for the Bears halted their momentum from successive wins and leaves them needing to win both remaining games, at home to Sussex and Kent, to qualify.

Put in, Hampshire raced to 50 in 50 balls thanks to Michael Carberry who sped to 33 from 22 balls before nicking Oliver Hannon-Dalby to wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose.

After Adam Wheater was run out by William Porterfield's direct hit, Hannon-Dalby, fresh from taking 5 for 27 against Glamorgan on Monday, collected his seventh wicket in three days with a superb leg-cutter edged by James Vince.

Jimmy Adams's anchor role ended when he lifted a drive at Jeetan Patel and fell to a fine catch by Porterfield.

That was 94 for 4 but Dawson, with his third half-century in four RLC innings, and Smith added 123 in 22 overs before both were caught in the deep. Gareth Berg and Chris Wood added useful late runs to leave Warwickshire a tough target.

The total looked even more difficult after Wood removed Porterfield, caught at point, and Jonathan Trott, lbw offering no stroke, with the second and third balls of his first over. Varun Chopra and Ambrose added 77 in 14 overs before the latter, having moved to 41, ran himself out.

A succession of showers then saw the target tweaked and retweaked after which Warwickshire simply had to take too many risks. Dawson had Chopra stumped and Ateeq Javid caught at short third man before Laurie Evans charged at him and missed, was bowled and with him went Warwikshire's victory hopes.