Mascarenhas shows his Hampshire value

Hampshire 202 for 6 (Brown 96*, Mascarenhas 56*) beat Worcestershire 201 for 8 (Batty 52, Mascarenhas 3-37)
Scorecard

An outstanding partnership of 137 between Michael Brown and Dimitri Mascarenhas carried Hampshire to a vital four-wicket victory against Worcestershire to keep their hopes of a quarter-final place alive.

Hampshire were in tatters at 65 for 6 after Simon Jones struck twice in two balls, having Jimmy Adams caught at second slip and beating Greg Lamb for pace, in a superb opening spell where he topped 90mph. However, Mascarenhas - who is yet to confirm whether he will return to the IPL now that the Rajasthan Royals have made the semi-finals - showed his value to his county with a fine captain's innings to follow three wickets.

The revelation, though, was Brown who is known more for his Championship batting. He kept his composure after Jones and Steve Magoffin created major problems and paced the chase superbly to complete a career-best. In the end, victory was achieved with 13 balls to spare and towards the finish Brown and Mascarenhas were doing it comfortably.

Both innings followed remarkably similar patterns as Mascarenhas reduced Worcestershire to 66 for 6. There was also a maiden one-day wicket for Hamza Riazuddin, the 18-year-old seamer, who earlier in the day sat a school exam. The fightback was staged by Gareth Batty alongside useful efforts from Kabir Ali and Gareth Andrew. It was enough to give Worcestershire what appeared like a winning total, but Hampshire had other ideas.

South/West Division

Team	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	N/R	Pts	Net RR	For	Against
Gloucestershire	5	3	1	0	1	7	+0.749	959/158.0	955/179.3
Somerset	6	3	2	0	1	7	+0.307	1281/246.1	1216/248.2
Hampshire	6	3	3	0	0	6	-0.441	1390/275.4	1391/253.4
Worcestershire	6	2	3	0	1	5	-0.225	1013/204.0	1096/211.1
Glamorgan	5	1	3	0	1	3	-0.157	837/178.0	822/169.1