County Championship: Hampshire restrict Durham to retain survival hopes

Brad Wheal was the pick of Hampshire's bowlers with three wickets

Hampshire retained their hopes of Division One survival as they restricted Durham to 242-7 in their first innings, a lead of 169 runs.

The hosts were earlier dismissed for 411, taking maximum batting points after resuming on 370-6 at Southampton.

Durham looked in trouble at 186-7, but recovered with an unbroken eight-wicket partnership of 56 between Michael Richardson (50) and Brydon Carse (30).

However, a win will now keep Hampshire up - whatever happens elsewhere.

Victory over Durham would ensure safety at the expense of the losers of Warwickshire's game with Lancashire at Edgbaston - while if that game is drawn or tied, a Hampshire win would send the Bears down.

Seventh-placed Warwickshire lead sixth-placed Lancashire by 79 runs with 10 second-innings wickets in hand after two days - but while both took maximum bowling points, the two sides only collected one batting point between them,

Hampshire currently trail Warwickshire by five points and Lancashire by 10.

If Hampshire take two more Durham wickets in the next 27 overs, they would earn a third and final batting point - which would mean a draw would keep them up at Warwickshire's expense if Lancashire win.

• Read more: What are Hampshire's relegation permutations?

The hosts lost their last four wickets for just 41 runs on the second morning at the Ageas Bowl as Durham claimed a final bowling point with 11 balls to spare.

Graham Onions took three wickets in three overs to finish with figures of 3-41.

Durham's reply started poorly when Keaton Jennings fell leg before without scoring to Gareth Berg's first ball and Scott Borthwick (15) edged Brad Wheal to keeper Lewis McManus.

Spinners Liam Dawson and Mason Crane reduced the visitors to 152-5 in the afternoon session, including captain Paul Collingwood for nought and Graham Clark for 58.

Wheal accounted for Ben Stokes (50) and Ryan Pringle in quick succession after tea as the follow-on looked possible.

But Hampshire failed to make a further breakthrough in the final 25 overs of the day and will look to finish off Durham's first innings with the second new ball on the third morning.

Hampshire all-rounder Liam Dawson told BBC Radio Solent:

"A decent day today for us and it's the sort of wicket where something can happen very quickly.

"You can get a partnership going, but you can also go bang, bang with a couple of wickets really quickly and a new batsman is in.

"We're still ahead of the game, but we're obviously going to have to take those three quick wickets in the morning and bat quickly and set a score.

"There's going to be a result at Edgbaston, but we're in a good position as well. They know that too and we can still win this game."