County Championship: Hampshire rally in Nottingham but title hopes hit

Lyndon James was one of three Notts bowlers to take three wickets

Hampshire's title hopes suffered a blow despite a revival from a disastrous start to their Division One match at Trent Bridge.

James Fuller's belligerent 46 from 49 balls helped them to 166 all out before Ian Holland reduced Nottinghamshire to 87-5.

Inserted following a morning wash-out, Hampshire lost both openers with no run scored in the opening two overs and, though Nick Gubbins made 49, they were 88-7 four balls after tea.

The trio of Lyndon James, Dane Paterson and Brett Hutton, the season's leading wicket-taker overnight, each finished with three.

But, supported by Felix Organ, Fuller latterly surged forward. Surviving a difficult chance in the deep off James when on nine, he mixed drives with periodic swipes as the stand reached 73 from 12 overs before he aimed one flash too many.

Nottinghamshire, facing 29 overs to the close, soon confronted problems of their own on this seamer-friendly surface. Holland, coming on second change, took three wickets in his first 10 balls and another 15 minutes from the close to put the visitors' earlier struggles firmly in context.

Holland fell to Hutton from the fifth ball before Toby Pettman made it successive wicket-maidens when Fletcha Middleton also went without score, lobbing tamely to mid-wicket.

Not until the sixth over did runs scored exceed wickets lost and unsurprisingly Gubbins and James Vince tried to bed in on a pitch of no great pace or bounce but persistent seam movement.

Briefly accelerating after 70 minutes of defence, and a very short Bridgford Road boundary, they were soon checked by James, however.

After their third-wicket recovery had posted 68, James followed his maiden five-wicket haul in the last game by removing both captain Vince and Ben Brown, for the third duck of the innings, in three balls.

In 11 balls either side of tea, James also then knocked over Liam Dawson before Paterson did for both Gubbins with a beauty and, on resumption, Keith Barker, edging a lifter to third slip.

Time may be running out for Hampshire to achieve the title that their own high-quality pace attack has long threatened to secure.

Nottinghamshire's thoughts of the Championship, meanwhile, have realistically given way to an outside threat of relegation.

This threat loomed again when acting skipper, Haseeb Hameed, soon became just the latest right-hander to fall to left-arm Barker with a defensive edge to the wicketkeeper.

Holland, introduced at 47-1, had Will Young bottom-edging a cut into his stumps and, in succession, Ben Slater, Joe Clarke and Matt Montgomery caught behind.

Report supplied by ECB Reporters' Network.