Four days of beautiful sunshine, the trees in full spring blossom, a good crowd and two First Division sides doing battle at the start of the Frizzell County Championship. Everything you could wish for, except one thing - a decent wicket.

1,411 runs may seem like fun, and for the statisticians it was, but not many of the bowlers of both sides will be singing the praises of a match that ended in stalemate.

John Crawley relaxes Photo Vic Isaacs

The fourth day saw John Crawley break a number of Hampshire records - Highest score by a Hampshire batsman on debut, best individual innings since the war, his sixth double century. For Hampshire their total of 671 for 8 (all out) two players were injured, left them tantalisingly close to breaking their own team record of 672-7dec against Somerset at Taunton in 1899. Kent's first innings score was also their highest ever against Hampshire. So, yes the statistical anoraks amongst us may have been happy, but the end result left the supporters unfulfilled.

Crawley's 272 was a feat of concentration taking over 9 and half hours, but it may have given him a millstone when he comes out to bat at the Rosebowl later this week. "How do you follow that?"

When Kent batted second time around, they found young Chris Tremlett a handful with the new ball, so the gentle pace of Will Kendall would have come as some relief. Hampshire had three substitute fielders on with father and son Jimmy and Stephen Cook, along with the more regular Mascarenhas who took two catches.

Adrian Aymes will be seeing a specialist about his knee problem, Shaun Udal received a nasty crack on the thumb, but although very sore, x-rays revealed no break; Alex Morris did not field as a precaution against aggravating his sore back

© Hampshire Cricket