Hampshire hold their nerve to book Lord's date

Hampshire 206 for 7 (Crawley 64) beat Warwickshire 166 (Sangakkara 44, Clark 3-38) by 40 runs
Scorecard

Kevin Pietersen clips to leg ... but for once he played a minor role © Getty Images

Hampshire overcame a sluggish start to book their place in the Friends Provident Trophy final with a battling 40-run victory over Warwickshire at Southampton. They will meet Durham at Lord's on August 18.

On a sluggish pitch Hampshire's total of 206 for 7 looked gettable, all the more so when Jonathan Trott and Kumar Sangakkara rebuilt the innings after a jittery start which included two superb catches by the ageing John Crawley.

Almost inevitably the introduction of Shane Warne turned the game on its head. He lured Jim Troughton into holing out in the deep but when Sean Ervine dropped a routine slip catch offered by Sangakkara off him it appeared that it might not be Hampshire's day.

Ervine made immediate amends when he had Sangakkara well caught at short midwicket one run later, the first of two wickets in five balls, and Warwickshire never recovered. Tim Ambrose kept battling as partners came and went and he was last man out as Stuart Clark, in his final outing for the county, mopped things up to finish with 3 for 38.

Crawley, the Man of the Match, had anchored the early part of the Hampshire innings which had an almost anticlimactic feel when Kevin Pietersen was caught high above his head by Darren Maddy at mid-off for 18. Crawley looked set for a hundred when he failed to beat Heath Streak's throw, Ambrose doing well to gather a low return and whip the bails off with Crawley an inch short.

Another run out - Ervine was the victim of more slick work from Ambrose - wobbled Hampshire and Ambrose was centre stage yet again soon after when he stumped Chris Tremlett, showing cunning in waiting as Tremlett lost his balance to a leg-side dart and tottered out of his ground.

Dimitri Mascarenhas then had the unusual experience of surviving two third-umpire referrals off one delivery, first for a stumping and then, reprieved from that, when Warwickshire queried Peter Hartley's decision to turn down a leg-before appeal. Replays suggested it was probably out, but the rules state the umpire can only be overruled if there has been an obvious error.

Mascarenhas added a crucial 54 for the seventh wicket with Nic Pothas, as Hampshire collected 53 runs in the last 10 overs. It turned out to be the difference between the sides.