Powerful seam bowlers do the damage as Hampshire wrap up win against Nottinghamshire

The strong seam attack of Fidel Edwards, Keith Barker and Kyle Abbott did the brunt of the work with three wickets apiece, and ended with figures of three wickets for 37 runs, three for 42 and three for 46, writes Alex Smith.

Hampshire have won three of their opening four Championship matches this season and took 22 points from this fixture to move to within two points of early pacesetters Somerset – who they will face in the Royal London One-Day Cup final at Lord’s on Saturday.

On the other side of the coin, Nottinghamshire haven’t won a first-class match since June last year – a run of 12 winless games.

They claimed four bonus points from the match to go alongside their draw and two defeats so far in 2019.

Hampshire started the day needing eight wickets for victory in a minimum of 96 overs, having dismissed both Nottinghamshire openers in a tricky 15 over spell following their declaration the previous evening.

The sun shone again at Newclose, as it had for the majority of four glorious days on the other side of the Solent, on a wicket which had increasingly flattened.

Night-watchman Matt Carter only lasted until the fifth over of the blue skied fourth day before he was lbw to Keith Barker.

Left-armer Barker almost dismissed Joe Clarke for a duck, but Kyle Abbott spilled a chance at mid-on, before Abbott found the edge of Clarke’s bat three balls later, wicketkeeper Tom Alsop completing the catch.

Chris Nash had shown plenty of fight in the morning session to reach a third Championship half century of the season.

His most sturdy partnership was with Jake Libby, with the pair blocking out 16 overs.

But 10 minutes before lunch Libby departed when Fidel Edwards bounced him and the ball ballooned up to Oli Soames at short leg.

Wickets began to flow much more freely after the interval when Nash was leg before to Abbott for 60 to the sixth ball after lunch before Tom Moores followed in identical style soon after.

Steven Mullaney was handed a life when he edged Mason Crane to Ajinkya Rahane at first slip only for the ball to slip through his grasp.

Mullaney and Luke Fletcher held up proceedings for just over half an hour before Barker clipped the Nottinghamshire captain’s off-stump.

Stuart Broad edged Edwards to Rahane at first slip before the result was ratified at 3.10pm when Mason Crane found Jake Ball’s leading edge to Aneurin Donald at cover.