Hampshire 77 for 3 trail Durham 213 (Pringle 99, McLaren 4-60) by 136 runs
Scorecard
Ryan McLaren marked his LV= County Championship debut for Hampshire with four wickets as they stepped up their bid to avoid relegation by dismissing Durham for 213 at Chester-le-Street.
Division One's bottom club replied with 77 for 3, Graham Onions taking all the wickets, before Will Smith and Liam Dawson survived the last 14 overs either side of a break for bad light.
Durham's Ryan Pringle, dropped by Smith at gully on 27, dominated the innings by making 99 of the remaining 148 runs after going in at 65 for 5.
The decision to bat looked flawed as the batting difficulties were underlined by Scott Borthwick facing 57 balls to score nine.
Although Hampshire handed a debut to Ryan Stevenson, from Devon, the trio of seamers from overseas shared the wickets.
McLaren took 4 for 60 while fellow South African Gareth Berg at one stage had figures of 14-7-14-3 before finishing with 3 for 27 and Fidel Edwards also took three.
In passing his previous best of 69 not out, Pringle hit 19 fours before he was adjudged to have edged a fourth catch to wicketkeeper Adam Wheater when trying to hook an Edwards bouncer.
Durham sent in England Under-19 one-day player Jack Burnham to open in his second first-class match and he was the first to edge to Wheater off McLaren after making 4.
Paul Collingwood went the same way after Mark Stoneman was bowled by Edwards. Berg was rewarded for his nagging accuracy by having Borthwick caught behind before the burly Pringle emerged to dominate a stand of 69 with Gordon Muchall.
After concentrating on survival against Berg, Muchall fell lbw for 23 when shaping to play to leg and James Weighell lost his off stump four balls later.
Pringle edged Berg wide of gully for four to complete an 87-ball half-century then pulled the next ball for four. And when Stevenson was recalled for his 10th over Pringle pulled, cut, glanced and sliced him for four fours in the over.
He moved into the 90s with three fours in an over off McLaren, including a lofted blow to long-off and was looking to keep up the attack when his 125-ball knock met its unfortunate end.
When Hampshire batted Jimmy Adams cut the first ball he faced for four and lost his off stump to the next.
Onions then had James Vince dropped on nought by Muchall at third slip and had to wait until his seventh over for his next reward. Vince, playing back, seemed to be surprised by extra bounce and was caught low down by Pringle at gully.
Two overs later Muchall sensationally atoned for his miss when he dived to his left at third slip to hold a one-handed catch when Michael Carberry drove at an away swinger from Onions. But Smith dug in to reach 22 at the close against his former county.
