Nottinghamshire made good use of seam-friendly conditions to take four Hampshire wickets on a rain-ruined opening day of Specsavers County Championship action at the Ageas Bowl.
No toss was needed as Chris Read exercised the option to field first and the home county were reduced to 149 for four from the 57 overs that were possible.
Luke Fletcher, two for 34, and Jake Ball, with two for 42 shared the four wickets.
In the final 13 over mini-session of the disrupted day Hants added 43 without loss, convincing Peter Moores that those runs meant the day was just about shared.
“Yes, it probably does,” said Nottinghamshire’s Coaching Consultant. “It just about makes it ‘Even-Stevens’. We worked well today, we bowled well because, as well as batters have to get back into rhythm, so do bowlers and I think Harry (Gurney) bowled a really good spell in that last session.
“We did what we wanted to do today, we got stuck in but all credit to them. I thought Tom Alsop played quite aggressively and that pulled a little bit back their way.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and look for a good first session and try and put ourselves into a really strong position.”
The Nottinghamshire starting eleven showed three changes from the team that played Warwickshire last week. Jake Libby returned in place of Greg Smith, Ball came back to replace Brett Hutton and there was also a change with the overseas bowler.
A niggling injured picked up Jackson Bird precluded his selection, so Notts registered Dan Christian to make his first class debut for the county, against one of his former teams.
Before start of play the Australian was presented with his county cap by Nottinghamshire captain Chris Read.
Openings were minimal during a testing opening hour. Read rotated his bowlers and got his reward when Ball came back for a second spell. Squared up, Michael Carberry fell for 19 when an outside edge flew sharply to Christian at third slip.
Coming towards the end of the opening session, one wicket looked to be a meagre return for the efforts of the bowlers but the morning was then transformed when Fletcher took two wickets in two balls.
Jimmy Adams had battled his way to 30 but then pushed firmly at the big fast bowler and looked astounded as Fletcher plucked a superb return catch above his left shoulder.
Liam Dawson innings met with the worst possible outcome, given out leg before wicket, first ball.
Sean Ervine survived the hat-trick ball before heading off for lunch with Will Smith, captaining Hants for the first time, in this match.
Light drizzle turned into a heavy shower and delayed play for a total of three and a quarter hours, delaying play until 4.15pm.
Ball and Fletcher bowled attacking lines in helpful conditions but Ervine and Smith doggedly survived for half an hour together before their partnership was broken.
A full-pitched delivery from Ball thudded into Smith’s pads and umpire Graham Lloyd upheld the appeal to end the batsman’s stay on 16.
A further stoppage took another chunk of overs out of the day but they returned to the middle just before 6pm to bowl the final 13 overs.
In the last knockings of a stop-start day Ervine rode his luck after a Gurney delivery seemed to roll back onto the base of the stumps and he was then put down in the slips by Christian, when on 26.
Ervine reached the close on 38 not out and Tom Alsop will begin day two on 32.
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