Hill and Bess lead fighting effort but Yorkshire CCC heavily beaten
THE first thing to say - to borrow the old cliche - is that you have to give credit to the opposition.
Hampshire played well, bouncing back from a three-day innings defeat at home to Essex last week to inflict on Yorkshire a similar setback.
They would have travelled north wary of a county whose win against Durham in the final game of last season helped to save their own club instead.
They would have returned south confident that the Essex result was just a one-off, a case of first game rustiness more than anything more concerning, perhaps.
As for Yorkshire?
Well, they will have to suck up this 214-run defeat and move on as Hampshire have managed to do themselves.
A blank card next week possibly helps to refocus minds - Yorkshire sit out the next round of games before a match against Paul Farbrace’s Sussex at Headingley, starting on Friday week, a county who have responded to their 12-point penalty for financial mismanagement by winning their first two games in spirited style.
But after a draw at newly-promoted Glamorgan in their opening match, it is clear - to borrow another old cliche - that there will be no easy games for Yorkshire this year, just challenging tests against quality opponents be they brandishing a bat or a ball.
No one brandished the ball better in this match than Kyle Abbott, the 38-year-old Hampshire pace bowler who hails from South Africa.
Tall, accurate and relentlessly probing, Abbott has been a tremendous servant to Hampshire down the years and, like Adam Lyth, another 38-year-old on shows in this game, he remains a formidable performer.
In the first innings, Abbott’s 4-49 from 20 overs helped to dismiss Yorkshire for a below-par 177 buttressed by Lyth’s top score of 76.
In the second innings, Abbott was even more effective, taking 6-21 from 17 overs as the hosts - set 426 to win - were dismissed for 211, the game finishing at 2.40pm on the final afternoon.
Abbott’s figures going into day four were 9-5-11-4 after he had winkled out Lyth, Sam Whiteman, Matty Revis and Ben Cliff the previous night as the home side tumbled to 62-5.
It took him just six balls to set the tone again, Fin Bean trapped leg-before to one that angled in.
Bean’s 33 was a dogged effort, spanning 90 balls and two-and-a-quarter hours at the crease. He scrapped for his runs, which did not come easy with Abbott in this form.
Harry Duke produced a couple of pleasant boundaries, playing Codi Yusuf away past point and then steering an Eddie Jack delivery in a similar direction.
But his hopes of something more meaty were ended by Sonny Baker, who had him caught at long-leg in front of the Rugby Stand by Jack off a top-edged pull.
The Rugby Stand cast the longest of shadows on this sunniest of mornings, one that drew a reasonable smattering of spectators given the match situation.
One never quite knows how much cricket one will see on a day such as this, with this one ushering forth the best weather of the game.
George Hill battled away after starting the day with a single to his name, profiting from a stroke of fortune when he was missed on four by Prest at first slip off Baker.
Hill cracked Jack for a boundary through the covers and steered Baker through third-man with the deftest of deflections, utilising his height and letting the ball come on to him.
Baker was a handful with his blistering pace - as Dom Bess, the Yorkshire captain, discovered to his cost.
First, Baker pinged him on the helmet with a short ball and then struck him in a place where no man wants to be struck, Bess taking several minutes to regain his composure as the stars, no doubt, slowly disappeared from in front of his eyes.
Hill went to an 86-ball half-century with a straight-driven six off Liam Dawson, the second time that he had dished out such treatment to the left-arm spinner towards the Rugby Stand end.
Moments later, Hill was back in the pavilion, adjudged lbw by umpire Martin Saggers to a ball from Abbott that hit him high on the front pad. Hill scored 52 from 90 balls with seven fours to go with his sixes off Dawson, sharing in a fighting stand of 78 in 18 overs with Bess.
The captain could not have come closer to following him to a half-century, departing for 49 when he got a leading edge off Dawson to Baker at mid-off, ending a 79-ball innings that lasted for almost two hours and contained eight fours.
Beneath increasingly overcast skies, the coup de grace was applied by Dawson, who bowled Ben Coad with one that kept low.
The joy of the Hampshire fielders was clear to see, while it was also a maiden victory for Russell Domingo, their new head coach.
Fittingly, Abbott led Hampshire from the field, his match figures of 10-70 speaking for themselves.