Hampshire duo dig deep to frustrate Old Trafford attack

Jul 24 2008 by Richard Williamson, Liverpool Daily Post

AFTER eight days’ cricket in which patience had played a major role in bringing Lancashire two vital victories, Stuart Law’s players discovered yesterday that wheeling away and waiting for success does not always bring its own rewards.

Law’s bowlers and fielders must try again this morning when their objective will be to break a third-wicket partnership between Michael Brown and Chris Benham which has already added 139 runs to Hampshire’s total and changed the complexion of this LV Division One contest.

Brown, a former Lancashire junior, was joined by Benhamwith the score on 35 for three.

Faced by a confident attack, the two Hampshire batsmen did what they had to do. They gritted it out for the remaining 51 overs.

The Hampshire batsmen’s statistics reflect their obduracy.

Brown faced 142 balls in a minute less than three hours for a half-century which contained just 16 scoring shots – few men since Samuel Morse have done more for dots.

Benham was quicker, facing 106 balls for his 50.

Yet the most noticeable contrast for those who watched yesterday’s cricket closely was between the resilience of Brown and Benham and the post-lunch carelessness of John Crawley and Michael Lumb, the first leaving a straight one from Glen Chapple, the second essaying an airy waft at Dominic Cork.

Only in the last half hour, when an edge flashed between wicket-keeper and slip and two confident appeals were turned down, did the Hampshire pair look anything like as vulnerable.

The enthralling languor of the afternoon’s play rather clouded the memory of a lively morning session in which Lancashire lost their last five wickets for 96 runs. This was a cheerful effort which occupied only 24.2 overs and featured a 42-ball innings of 35 by Dominic Cork who took 14 off a single Imran Tahir over.

The straight six Cork struck off the leg-spinner was a magnificently clean hit, although vastly more surprising was Gary Keedy’s slog sweep over the ropes off the same bowler. The innings ended when Keedy attempted to repeat the feat, but perished on the deep mid-wicket boundary, thus giving Tahir his fifth scalp.

This final wicket was a deserved success for the peripatetic Pakistani who, while he numbers the Sui Gas Corporation and the Water and Power Development Authority among his 13 first-class teams, is more than simply a utility cricketer.

There’s every chance, though, that he has an impressive collection of cricket sweaters.