Date-stamped : 26 Jun96 - 22:16 County Championship 1996 Warwickshire v Hampshire Edgbaston 16,17,18,20 May 1996 ====> REPORT (Day 1, 16 May 1996) Reeve`s bag of tricks By Mike Beddow at Edgbaston Hampshire (242-7) v Warwicks FOR Warwickshire, this was a day for thinking and tinkering: ideal for their captain conjurer. Dermot Reeve shuffled his pack of six bowlers, five of whom shared seven wickets, and on balance the champions would have been reasonably satisfied with their progress. Batting was a turgid exercise for Hampshire, their first innings held together for 4.25 hours by Jason Laney until Reeve`s nagging got to their inexperienced middle order. He is irritating as well as inventive. A slowish pitch was not helpful to Shaun Pollock, but he was poorly rewarded with only Sean Morris`s deflection into first slip`s hands to show for 25 overs. Graeme Welch took the only other wicket in the morning, a session in which Laney failed to score for 50 minutes. The opener, howev- er, later drove well on the offside, with the shot of the day off Pollock. This was the cue for the magician`s touch. Enter Reeve to bowl 12 overs for nine runs and two wickets, both caught behind. Ro- bin Smith, captaining injury-hit Hampshire for the first time, departed first and Laney`s bottom edge meant that he only equalled a championship best score of 73. Reeve`s next trick was landed with his spinners. Giles White flicked across a straight ball from Neil Smith and Paul Whitaker, his bat held high as if awaiting an ovation, avoided that possi- bility with a push to silly-point off Ashley Giles. Winston Benjamin then bludgeoned Smith with four and six in the same over. Time for another bowling change, and immediately Giles got one past an attempted sweep. Ultimately, though, Reeve was denied a jackpot by the discipline of Adrian Aymes and Rajesh Maru. ====> REPORT (Day 2, 17 May 1996) Connor grills champions By Mike Beddow Hampshire (274) lead Warwickshire (192) by 82 runs HAMPSHIRE squared up to new adversity yesterday with Robin Smith fearing a broken finger and their third captain of the week at the helm. The outcome was another bruising experience, not for the beleaguered side but for the county champions. Rajesh Maru assumed the responsibilities of leadership and or- chestrated a compelling team effort which resulted in Warwickshire`s lowest home championship total in four seasons. The anticipation of another swift kill, fostered by the capture of Hampshire`s last three wickets, was turned into an unexpected grilling by Cardigan Connor. Nick Knight`s exit, helplessly leg-before to a shooter, raised new alarms about the surface but Dominic Ostler`s dismissal prob- ably owed more to misjudgment. His was the batsman`s nightmare: playing no shot to a ball that took out the off stump. Hampshire`s joy was obvious. Their wickets in their first cham- pionship match against Essex had cost nearly 50 runs each, and now they had taken two within three balls. For Warwickshire, it was the start of a rare hounding as the new ball moved about or bounced unreliably. Winston Benjamin`s interest perked up to the point of agitation with the refusal of a second appeal against Wasim Khan. Harmony was only restored after umpire Bob White had spoken to Hampshire`s captain. This was Maru rather than John Stephenson, out of this game with a gashed finger, or stand-in Smith, who was having a second X-ray last night to determine the damage to his right index finger. As soon as Connor completed a spell of two for 25, Warwickshire were presented with a new hazard. Maru pitched into a large area of rough and the left-hander Khan was trapped, strokeless and in front of his stumps, by one that turned. Trevor Penney was first to reveal the more positive nature of Warwickshire`s cricket, but after coasting to 48 from 92 balls, he was in defensive mode when playing on to a refreshed Connor. Much then depended on Dermot Reeve`s powers of organisation. He batted for three hours in a partnership of 80 with Shaun Pollock. There was an element of misadventure when Pollock drove Kevan James to cover but full credit to the bowler when Reeve was lbw, completely tangled up by a full-length delivery from Connor. Warwickshire had time to reflect during a stoppage for bad light, but promptly surrendered two more wickets - Dougie Brown, at sil- ly point, and Neil Smith, a fifth victim for Connor with a poor shot to mid-off. James then claimed the last two wickets to com- plete a highly successful day for the hard-working Hampshire side. ====> REPORT (Day 3, 18 May 1996) High fibre fails to stimulate Warwickshire By Scyld Berry Warwickshire (192 & 9-0) trail Hampshire ( 274 & 276-5 dec) by 349 runs Warwickshire, at a serious disadvantage for being 82 runs behind on first innings, tried all they could to get back into their game against Hampshire, including six bowlers and a new high- carbohydrate diet. But tomorrow might see the county champions` first defeat since last July. At lunchtime the Warwickshire team tried chicken chasseur without the skin, broccoli, carrots, salads and baked potatoes in search of a high-energy performance in the field. The only trouble was that Hampshire had the same nourishment, and just before the close the visitors - though they were without Robin Smith who has a hairline fracture of his right index finger - set Warwickshire a target of 359. For tea the county champions helped themselves to the raisin cake, muesli, dates, grapes and other fruits now to be found in their dressing-room (and on Tuesday the club`s dietician will ad- dress wives and girlfriends on how to feed their menfolk). But Hampshire seem to have found their own brand of fibre in this match, thanks partly to the new coaching of Malcolm Marshall; and their bowlers have been more suited to a pitch keeping low. Whereas Cardigan Connor had skidded through for lbws, Shaun Pol- lock and Dougie Brown banged the ball in, until Pollock reduced his run-up to half-a-dozen paces. For the first time this season Warwickshire are missing Allan Donald, who could have skidded it through and stopped the batsmen edging forward; Tim Munton, who would have been valuable too, is out for another month, but Glad- stone Small and Andy Moles plan to be fit for Thursday`s impor- tant match with Leicestershire. Dermot Reeve, in particular, lacked nothing in energy but could not break his way through. He huffed and puffed, harried and chivvied - and that was just at the umpire. Perhaps this ball needs changing? Was that one, going a foot down the legside, just straight enough to be worth a shout? And that booming straight- driven four: didn`t the batsman get just a hint of pad on it first? No? Led by Kevan James, with his ninth century in 16 seasons, Hampshire`s otherwise young and unrecognised, but disciplined, batsmen suffered the odd knuckle-rapper to push forward and graft. Jason Laney, not too tall for this pitch, hit some chunky shots through extra, and as Kevan James doggedly accumulated for five hours, Warwickshire`s realistic expectations had to shift from a surprise win towards three consoling points - perhaps with the aid of rain - for a draw. Graeme Welch nipped a perfect seamer past Sean Morris`s outside edge for the first wicket, hitting the offstump. Jason Laney went to a freak dismissal, his outside edge ballooning off the keeper`s right foot to short-leg. Giles White made another 20, until he swept over a full-length ball from Ashley Giles, delivered from over the wicket. James lofted Giles straight when the very promising left-arm spinner pitched up, and he went to his 50 similarly with one of his two sixes. Otherwise the day was not spectacular stuff - not great entertainment at all, indeed, through nobody`s fault. But in the freezing circumstances the high standard of both sides could be applauded. Hand-warmers, such as Warwickshire use, don`t make one hard lump of a ball any more welcome, yet Reeve held a stinging off-drive and Trevor Penney brought off a brilliant run-out from deepish extra-cover. The standards of cricketers of other first-class countries would surely lapse more in these conditions than England`s do. Could this patchy pitch roll out to be the flattest and barest of wickets, designed by MJK Smith and the groundsman Steve Rouse to rebuff Raymond Illingworth for his harsh comments about Edgbaston`s and Test team will not act together in the national interest. ====> REPORT (Day 4, 20 May 1996) Reeve rumbled as Warwickshire finally crumble By Mike Beddow at Edgbaston Hampshire (274 & 276-5 dec) bt Warwickshire (192 & 236) by 122 runs THE county champions` Edgbaston fortress was breached for only the third time in three seasons when Hampshire, resourceful and committed throughout, secured full reward for their acting captain, Raj Maru, with nine balls remaining. Maru`s shrewd management guided the side through a protracted last day in which Warwickshire paid minimal attention to their victory objective of 359 in 100 overs. The preserva- tion of an unbeaten home record in all competitions, dating back to last July, was always their primary considera- tion. There was a certain symmetry in the way Hampshire captured their wickets: two in the first seven overs in the morning, two more in seven after lunch, and then, when they needed a greater effort, three in six after tea. The new incentive of three points for a draw was there to stimulate Warwickshire`s resolve, and this mani- fested itself in an awful period in which Dermot Reeve took 11 overs to score his first run and brought out a spoiling tac- tic from his repertoire of obstructive methods. To counter Maru`s left-arm line into the rough, Reeve extended his licence to pad away almost every ball that pitched outside leg stump. His ploy was to throw the bat away and his purpose to avoid dismissal for any deflection from pad to glove. Obviously he had read up on Law 32, which states that a bats- man can only be caught off a hand if he is holding the bat, but in taking precautions to this extent, he was surely in danger of transgressing the spirit of the game. Reeve performed this routine 15 times and scored his only boundary in 92 minutes when Maru briefly bowled from round the wicket. But as soon as he went over again, the left leg was thrust out and the bat shovelled off in the direction of point four times in one over. The irony was the manner of Reeve`s exit. When another left-arm bowler, Kevan James, came in from over the wicket, the instinct to play a shot resulted in leg-side contact to Adrian Aymes, standing up. When Trevor Penney, after playing well for his four-hour 73, pulled across a straight ball from Cardigan Connor, Hampshire were on their way. Connor made it two wickets in three balls by bowling Neil Smith and Stuart Milburn broke another pock- et of resistance with two in successive balls. Giles White swooped to intercept a drive from Keith Piper at cov- er, and when Graeme Welch was lbw, playing no shot, the last pair had to survive for 13 overs. Ashley Giles followed one course of action, taking 34 deliveries to score, and Dougie Brown tried to be positive, but Hampshire eventually achieved their unexpected success when Brown was caught by Aymes to give Connor his eighth wicket of the match. Earlier inroads had been made by Winston Benjamin, beating Wasim Khan`s late defensive stroke and removing Do- minic Ostler with one that bounced, but no-one could have plotted the bizarre start to the afternoon. After only two deliveries, Benjamin left the field with a dam- aged shoulder, which brought about the appear- ance of Hampshire`s coach, Malcolm Marshall, as substitute - and the re- placement bowler, Milburn, dismissed Nick Knight with his first ball. The left-handed opener had played faultlessly until then for his 60. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by William.Turrell (william@*.chaucer.ac.uk)