Day One

The odds continue to lengthen against fourth-placed Hampshire finally claiming the crown this season exactly fifty years since last they won the title. But they revived from a poor start at Trent Bridge courtesy of a fine late flourish from James Fuller whose belligerent 46 from 49 balls helped them to 166 all out before Ian Holland reduced Nottinghamshire to 87 for five.

Inserted in the LV= Insurance County Championship following a morning wash-out, Hampshire lost both openers with no run scored in the opening two overs and, though Nick Gubbins made 49, they were 88 for seven four balls after tea. The trio of Lyndon James, Dane Paterson and Brett Hutton, the season's leading wicket-taker overnight, each finished with three.

But, supported by Felix Organ, Fuller latterly surged forward. Surviving a difficult chance in the deep off James when he had nine, he mixed authentic drives with periodic swipes as the stand reached 73 from 12 overs before he aimed one flash too many.

Nottinghamshire, facing 29 overs to the close, soon confronted problems of their own on this seamer's surface. Holland, coming on second change, took three wickets in his first ten balls and another 15 minutes from the close to put the visitors' earlier struggles firmly in context.

On a day when just one stand lasted even 55 minutes, Hutton had initiated the general calamity when he followed his wicket with the second ball of the previous match with that of Holland from the fifth ball of this. Toby Pettman, in only his fourth Championship start, and his first for Nottinghamshire, made it successive wicket-maidens when Fletcha Middleton also went without score, lobbing tamely to mid-wicket.

Not until the sixth over did runs scored exceed wickets lost and unsurprisingly Gubbins and Vince tried to bed in on a pitch of no great pace or bounce but persistent seam movement. Briefly accelerating after 70 minutes of defence, and a very short Bridgford Road boundary, they were soon checked by James, however.

After their third-wicket recovery had posted 68, James followed his maiden five-wicket haul in the last game by removing both captain Vince and Ben Brown, for the third duck of the innings, in three balls. Vince, whipping across the line for 22, and Brown both fell leg-before in his second over.

In eleven balls either side of tea, James also then knocked over Liam Dawson before Paterson did for both Gubbins with a beauty and, on resumption, Keith Barker, edging a lifter to third slip.

Time may be running out for Hampshire to achieve the title that their own high-quality pace attack has long threatened to secure. No fewer than eight of this present eleven have already passed a 32nd birthday and both Barker and fellow seamer Kyle Abbott are now 36.

In contrast, Nottinghamshire's ranks have been so depleted by injury, Test calls and loss of form that half of the dozen men who played their first two games in April were absent from this. Thoughts of the Championship have realistically given way some while ago to an outside threat of relegation.

This threat loomed again when acting skipper, Haseeb Hameed, soon became just the latest right-hander to fall to left-arm Barker with a defensive edge to the 'keeper and Holland, introduced at 47 for one, had Will Young bottom-edgeing a cut into his stumps and, in succession, Ben Slater, Joe Clarke and Matt Montgomery caught behind. Some day: a wicket fell on average every 31 balls.

Day Two

Under leaden skies, on a still treacherous pitch, the batters came and went until Ian Holland took a hand. By an hour after lunch at Trent Bridge, 24 had succumbed in all, their average life expectancy 30 balls, the average partnership 14.8 runs. But for the second time in the match Holland regained control, paving a path for Liam Dawson's punishing dash at the other end.

Following his four late Nottinghamshire wickets on Wednesday, Holland's application in an invaluable, un-Bazball like 138 not out from 251 balls was complemented by Dawson's 82 from 111 during a fifth-wicket alliance of 150 that grasped this LV= Insurance County Championship game for Hampshire. Rubbing it in, James Fuller swatted a violent unbeaten 52 at the end before a declaration with two overs left.

Resuming earlier, Nottinghamshire survived three overs before their remaining five wickets were suddenly swept away for as many runs in 35 balls by Kyle Abbott and Mohammad Abbas. Blink and another had fallen. Out for exactly 100, they trailed by 66 on first innings.

From 89 for four when Hampshire batted again, however, as the pitch slowly yielded its demons, Holland, the opener, resolute at one end, and Dawson prospered in afternoon sun to help set a target of  411 by the close reached with Nottinghamshire on eight without loss. Holland's staunch five-hour hundred was his first for 27 months.

There are some niche distinctions in the game but Holland is undoubtedly the sole player in cricket history to be born in Wisconsin, raised in Australia, carrry a British passport via his father and yet boast a fourth nation as his surname. He watched as Fletcha Middleton offered a defensive bat to Dane Paterson's second ball only for it to drop and roll agonisingly on to the stumps, barely dislodging a bail.

Patterson then undid Nick Gubbins and James Vince either side of lunch before the skittish Ben Brown skipped out to drive Brett Hutton to mid-off and bring in Dawson, the lead standing at 155. Negating seam movement by advancing to attack, Dawson helped pull the game away from Nottinghamshire through 36 overs spanning tea.

With Holland bedded in but putting the bad ball away, he grew ever more aggressive, surviving a chance off Paterson when 56. Though his partner had enjoyed a 34-run start, Dawson was on the verge of catching him when finally he sliced a lavish drive to slip. After a poor start to the championship campaign, he has now made 483 runs at 60.37 in his last six matches.

James Fuller arrived to take up the punishment before a shower intervened just before 6pm and just after Holland's landmark from 224 balls. With four more overs lost, Nottinghamshire took the new ball on resumption but Fuller charged to his fifty from 41 balls in a withering late assault, now merrily joined by Holland, that passed 100 for the sixth wicket in only 83 balls before the surprise Stokes-like closure.

The home side's paltry performance at the start was not as unusual as may be thought: there have been six lower all-out tallies in the first division this season,  five of them indeed involving one of these two sides.

Nottinghamshire were dismissed only three innings previously for 92 in Taunton and Hampshire fell for 97 at home to Warwickshire in early May. Hampshire knocked over Kent for 95 and both teams annihilated  Northamptonshire, out for 72 and 56. The latter, inflicted by Hampshire, remains the division's most abject score this summer.

Day Three

Tom Moores flailed tired bowlers in the evening with 81, his first fifty of the season, to threaten just the chance of a remarkable upset but he became the first of five final men to fall in 90 minutes as Hampshire completed their fifth win this campaign by 116 runs.

Challenged to make 411 in a theoretical maximum of 202 overs by their late declaration on Thursday, Nottinghamshire started the third day of the Trent Bridge LV= Insurance County Championship match with the neat equation before them of exactly 400 runs required and all ten men standing.

In fact the more key early stat was supplied by the seamers: Mohammad Abbas struck with his third ball of the day, Kyle Abbott with his second and, after rain stole 13 overs, James Fuller with his fifth and eleventh balls of the match. Hampshire's formidable pace pack sensed victory at 76 for four.

A stand of 99 slightly shifted the balance until Joe Clarke, twice missed, finally fell for 67 to Fuller, who finished with four for 59, and Moores, after adding 64 with Lyndon James, had his off stump clipped still 30 overs from the scheduled close.

The home demise began in the morning's second over when Ben Slater, in what has been a season of struggle, was unable to add to his overnight eight before a beauty from Abbas straightened to hit off stump. When Abbott arrived as first change and found the immediate lift to take the shoulder of Will Young's bat and see the Kiwi lob to the 'keeper for the same score, Nottinghamshire were 40 for two.

Rain arrived three balls later and, soon after the afternoon resumption, Clarke was reprieved on one at second slip off the same bowler before Fuller, the fifth seamer employed, ended Haseeb Hameed's fluent 30 by having the acting captain held high at third slip from a defensive edge. He then disposed of South African Matt Montgomery for a ninth-ball duck.

Born in Cape Town but raised in New Zealand, Fuller is one of four bowlers in Hampshire's pace quintet who all learned their cricket abroad but it was the lone home-grown seamer, Keith Barker, who should have ended a fifth-wicket revival then worth 50.

A top-edged cut from Clarke flashed between 'keeper and slip, the latter only belatedly reacting, as a fortuitous boundary brought up Clarke's fifty. Next over, another shower forced an early tea but no loss of time.

It meant the last session stretched ahead for potentially 53.2 overs and ten of them had gone by the time Fuller, in a second spell, cut one back to remove Clarke's middle stump for 67. Moores then accelerated until spin made its first Hampshire appearance of the match - and Liam Dawson, aghast, saw him dropped at the wicket from his twelfth ball.

It was finally yet another seamer, the Austalian raised Ian Holland, who clipped his off stump, Moores's 81 coming from 109 balls, before Abbas returned to bowl James, ending 20 overs at the crease for 21. When Brett Hutton hung a bit and edged behind for nine Fuller had secured his fourth success.

Refusing runs to farm the strike, Calvin Harrison held out until the new ball was available - and immediately taken in bright sunshine at 6.25 with 13 overs left. But Toby Pettman, left two balls to face from the first of them, fended to short leg off the second. Harrison, last to go, was leg-before to Abbas for 39, 27 balls later.