Hants panic to throw away winning chance

Hampshire threw away the chance of a second successive Rose Bowl championship victory against Gloucestershire.

Needing 56 off the last ten overs of the match they had dominated, blind panic saw them finish on 55 for six.

At the start of the day it seemed they might finish off Gloucestershire in time to take in the final action at the Dell for the visitors were 181 behind with only eight second innings wickets standing.

And, when shortly before lunch three more prime batsmen had been sent packing by Alex Morris and Alan Mullally, they were still 102 adrift.

There seemed no escape but Dominic Hewson and Jeremy Snape turned things around and finally showed the bottle to make a fight of it.

Hewson, whose career-best 87 had come against Hampshire on his debut five summers ago, and Snape added 119 in 31 overs before Snape was leg before to Mascarenhas.

Hewson's maiden century beckoned until on 89, after five hours at the crease, he was bowled by Mascarenhas.

The last three wickets squeezed the total to 272 and Hampshire's target was 56 but where a cool head was required they went for the big yahoo and when the last over came they still needed eight runs to win.

That was reduced to four from the last two balls but they managed only three and Gloucestershire escaped with a draw.