THE only trouble with the NatWest Trophy is that the final is often over almost before it is begun. The influence of the dew when matches start at 10.30 in September is too often decisive but how do you explain three wickets in the first over of a game on a balmy morning in July?
With some embarrassment in the case of Essex, who, three days before they appear in the other knockout final at Lord's, were two for three after Cardigan Connor's opening over, and at different times also 17 for four and 32 for six.
Put in on a pitch which undoubtedly had some early dampness and which retained some life throughout, they eventually eked out sufficient runs to make an injury-stricken Hampshire work hard to win.
Without their captain Robin Smith, who broke a finger batting against Gloucestershire, Hampshire are a vulnerable batting side and they lost seven wickets in scoring the 130 needed after the 37-year-old Connor had more or less done their job for them with his devastating prologue.
Now into his second thousand of wickets in all competitions for Hampshire, the muscular Anguillan, who has tried so hard for so long for his adopted county, has surely never bowled an over quite so deadly.
His opening delivery, the first of the match, nipped back to bowl Paul Prichard off an inside edge. The Essex captain had spent the night in Room 111, a number he will wish to avoid at their London hotel on Friday.
Nasser Hussain went to Connor's third ball, caught off bat and pad at short leg, and the sixth was a beauty which lifted to take Stuart Law's outside edge. For a man who was not certain to play for Hampshire yesterday it was a fair start.
Watching this horror show from the other end, Paul Grayson did well to last 10 overs, especially as Ronnie Irani, for whom no challenge is too great, went in the sixth over as he edged a force off the back foot to second slip off Nixon McLean.
Grayson himself fell to a similar shot, caught this time at first slip, and when Stephen Peters, after one classy hit off the back foot, gave Connor his fourth wicket when he tried to withdraw his bat and played on, the damage was virtually irreversible.
Danny Law did his sprightly best after that, playing some good shots off the front foot once he had survived a confident lbw shout to Peter Hartley's first ball. He was last out, caught at cover, but Hartley and John Stephenson used the lingering bounce and lateral movement ably.
The start of Hampshire's response was deceptive. Jason Laney, fresh from a double century against Essex's second XI, rattled off five off-side fours in Ashley Cowan's first two overs but Irani, looking much more like an England all-rounder this season, then bowled Essex back into the contest with the help of some sharp catching behind the wicket.
From 33 for no wicket in the 10th over, with Stephenson intent on an anchoring innings, Hampshire declined to 50 for four in the 21st, the kind of collapse which gives English cricket its reputation for fragility. But two experienced men, Kevan James and Adrian Aymes, steadied the ship and although they both got out after tea, only 35 more were needed.
Aymes has taken a long time to establish his reputation as one of the slickest wicketkeepers in the land but he has had a good season all round and his 573 first-class runs have been scored at an average of 63.
Hampshire are a strange mixture this year of veterans, novices and half-established cricketers but, if the broad smile of Connor is a guide, they are a happy side and that counts for much.
A crowd of 2,000 yesterday included a club side from Vienna, currently touring Hampshire and Berkshire. If they are here for the quarter-final, too, empty seats will be harder to find.