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Liam Dawson caps allround tour de force as Hampshire crush Lancashire

Liam Dawson gets a high five from James Vince Getty Images

Hampshire 389 (Middleton 109, Dawson 104*, Gubbins 75, Wells 4-94) beat Lancashire 200 (Jennings 56, Dawson 5-47) and 152 (Wells 51, Dawson 5-52) by an innings and 37 runs

Liam Dawson enjoyed a Saturday to remember at Emirates Old Trafford as Hampshire defeated Lancashire by an innings and 37 runs with a day to spare in their Vitality County Championship match.

Having dismissed Lancashire for 200 in their first innings and enforced the follow-on, the visitors bowled Keaton Jennings' side out a second time for 152. Dawson took five for 52 to finish with match figures of 10 for 99, alongside his first-innings century, and Mohammad Abbas bagged three for 18. Luke Wells offered the only significant resistance for the home side with 53.

Hampshire gain 22 points whereas Lancashire collect just three.

The victory is only Hampshire's third by an innings in 158 matches against Lancashire, the complete sequence of games stretching back to 1870. The other two hammerings were achieved at Bournemouth in 1922 and Southport in 1973.

And following their loss at The Oval last week, this defeat marks the first time since 1907 that Lancashire have lost successive County Championship matches by an innings.

More seriously for the Old Trafford side's immediate future, the home defeat leaves them still ninth out of the ten teams in Division One and plainly in danger of being relegated to the second tier of English domestic cricket.

At the start of the day, it had taken Hampshire's bowlers just nine balls to claim Lancashire's last two first-innings wickets. George Bell was caught behind by Ben Brown off John Turner for 35 and Tom Aspinwall was leg before to Dawson for a five-ball duck, leaving the slow left-armer with season-best figures of five for 47 from 28.3 overs.

Empowered by their 189-run first-innings lead and with thunderstorms possible on Sunday, Hampshire opted to enforce the follow-on and were almost immediately rewarded with two prime wickets.

Having been deterred from coming down the wicket by Brown standing up to the stumps, Jennings was pinned on the crease by Abbas and was lbw for one. Three overs later, Josh Bohannon was lbw to John Turner for a 12-ball nought and Lancashire were 12 for two.

Wells and Rocky Flintoff shepherded Lancashire to 34 for two after 25 overs at lunch, only for the home side to lose two wickets in just over half an hour of the afternoon session. Flintoff, having resisted for all but an hour, was caught by Brown off Abbas for eight, and five overs later Matty Hurst swiped at Dawson and was bowled for a 19-ball duck.

Bell and Wells then settled for the attritional approach, adding 44 runs and thereby doubling the score in 20 overs of dogged resistance before Bell was caught at short leg by Fletcha Middleton off James Fuller for 21 and Wells was bowled for 53, five balls after reaching his half-century, when he played a slower ball from Dawson down and into the stumps.

George Balderson and Venkatesh Iyer adopted a more attacking approach either side of tea but Dawson struck back on the resumption when he dismissed Iyer for 36, the Indian chopping the ball into his stumps.

Next over, Balderson was caught at slip by Tom Prest off Abbas for seven and seven overs later Tom Hartley was bowled by Liam Dawson for 10. The match ended when Bailey skied Dawson to Abbott at midwicket to complete a remarkable game for the all-rounder, who had taken ten wicket and also scored a century, a feat he also achieved only last season against Middlesex.

Lancashire 3rd innings Partnerships

WktRunsPlayers
1st6LWP WellsKK Jennings
2nd3LWP WellsJJ Bohannon
3rd30LWP WellsR Flintoff
4th5LWP WellsMF Hurst
5th44LWP WellsGJ Bell
6th0LWP WellsGP Balderson
7th43VR IyerGP Balderson
8th2GP BaldersonTW Hartley
9th14TE BaileyTW Hartley
10th5TE BaileyTH Aspinwall