Love's 273 sets up Durham against Hampshire

A quite superb 273 by Durham's Martin Love, the ninth highest score ever against Hampshire, was the stepping stone that gave the home side the ascendancy at Riverside on the second day of the Frizzell County Championship match.

His innings consisted of 38 fours and two sixes, the latter coming as he pushed for runs with his side 9 wickets down. He finally fell going for another big shot off Shaun Udal, having survived over 7 and a half hours.

Love had good support at the bottom of the innings and Durham's highest Individual score set up a formidable 515.

Rain meant that play did not get under way until 12:15, but despite the overcast conditions Hampshire's bowlers failed to make the breakthrough early enough.

Batting suddenly became a different story when Hampshire began their reply needed an awsome 366 to avoid the follow on, and despite setting an opening partnership of 50, finished the day at 88 for 4.

James Adams having batted for 80 minutes edged the seamer Mark Davies to the wicket-keeper, then after hitting three fours, Simon Katich celebrating his 28th birthday, was snared lbw by the same bowler.

Robin Smith playing his first match for 6 weeks did not survive long falling lbw to Paul Collingwood, then skipper John Crawley top edged spinner Graeme Bridge.

Bad light stopped play an hour early, much to the relief of the Hampshire batsmen, but they will have to do a great deal of back to the wall batting on the third day if they are not to suffer a third successive Championship defeat.