- Aigburth: Hampshire 143; Lancashire 25-3
- Abbas and Barker make early inroads into hosts’ reply
If the scene was serene, the bowlers were not. Spectators unfolded in camping chairs and stretched across green benches as the Liverpool sun dipped towards its 7.13pm nightcap, but no one was leaving early. Mohammad Abbas and Keith Barker were pawing the ground, desperate to put Hampshire back in the game after they had been bowled out for 143.
Barker, trousers hitched up to reveal his patterned socks, a giant of a man, pounded in from the River End. Abbas, slight as a sycamore seed, skin covered from wrist to ankle, slid through from the Pavilion End, the smiling assassin with the effortless action. The pair of them consulted, laughing between balls. It felt like a stretch for Lancashire to survive the 20 overs till stumps. It was.