DAY ONE: Hampshire 351 for 8 (96 overs)

George Bailey’s five-hour century and some determined resistance from Hampshire’s lower order left the visitors’ slightly better placed in this Specsavers County Championship match at the end of a fluctuating first day on what seems a good batting pitch at Emirates Old Trafford.

Bailey made 127 and hit 15 of the 187 balls he received to the boundary.

Even more significantly he shared four fifty-plus partnerships to enable his side to recover from 125 for five and reach 351 for 8 when the players eventually returned to the pavilion at nearly seven o’clock.

Even more encouragingly from a Hampshire perspective Kyle Abott is 76 not out, having batted with excellent good sense in his attacking style and the South African now has an opportunity to strengthen his team’s position on the second morning and overtake his career-best score of 80.

However the visitors’ prosperity on the first evening of this Division One game is in sharp contrast to their position in the first session when Steven Croft’s six-man attack had taken three wickets in the first 65 minutes.

That the visitors reached 84 for three at lunch was testament to the rectitude and vigilance of Bailey and James Vince who ensured that Lancashire made no further breakthroughs in the second hour of the session after Michael Carberry’s flat-footed slash had only given a catch to Alex Davies off Ryan McLaren.

The Hampshire opener departed for 14 but his was the third wicket to fall in 23 balls after Kyle Jarvis had marked his return to the Lancashire eleven after injury by removing both Jimmy Adams and Rille Rossouw.

Adams was caught at cover by Rob Jones for 16 when looking to play to leg and the out-of-form Rossouw played too early at Jarvis’s slower ball and gave a return catch to the bowler, thus leaving the visitors on 38 for three.

Lancashire’s bowlers claimed three more wickets in the afternoon session but were prevented from making further breakthroughs by Bailey, who was 94 not out at tea.

But the relative respectability of Hampshire’s total was explained not only by Bailey’s skill but also by the obduracy of his partners.

The Hampshire skipper shared a stand of 69 for the fourth wicket with James Vince, who was leg before to Luke Procter for 22, and another of 52 for the sixth wicket with Lewis McManus, and he defied the Lancashire attack on a steamy afternoon when the bowlers frequently found it difficult to control the swinging ball.

In addition to Vince’s wicket, Procter also dismissed Sean Ervine, who was caught behind for seven when fencing at a ball outside the off stump, but the other wicket in the afternoon session fell to Jordan Clark, who had McManus pouched at second slip by Jimmy Anderson for 15.

In the evening session Bailey took his seventh-wicket stand with Gareth Berg to 55 before the ex-Middlesex all-rounder was leg before to Stephen Parry for 27 but that wicket only brought Abbott to the crease and it thereby heralded the best period of the day for Hampshire.

The pair added 83 in 78 minutes before Bailey gave Jimmy Anderson his first wicket of the day when his attempted cut only bottom-edged the ball into his stumps.

By then, though, Hampshire were 314 for eight and that position was strengthened by Abbott and Brad Taylor before the close.

All six Lancashire bowlers took wickets with Jarvis (two for 59) and Procter (two for 49 ) being the most successful members of an attack which rather lost its discipline when put under pressure by Abbott’s uninhibited hitting. Anderson finished with one for 74 from 22 overs.