FRESH faces and a new season, but there was a somewhat familiar feel to Hampshire's batting performance at The Rose Bowl yesterday.

Simon Katich looked a class apart from anyone else on display and played beautifully for an unbeaten 72.

The Australian ace appears in excellent touch ahead of the Ashes series later this summer and will be Hampshire's batting rock in the weeks ahead - but he was powerless to prevent Gloucestershire from washing away his teammates like pebbles.

Batting conditions were not easy on an overcast day, but Hampshire would have expected much better than being all out at tea for 197.

Gloucestershire, after all, had few hiccups as they closed on 118-2 in reply.

Phil Weston made 66, with Hampshire's opening attack of Chris Tremlett and new-boy Richard Logan unable to make any real impression.

Shane Warne waited until the 18th over before bringing himself on and the legendary leg-spinner took his first wicket of the season in his fifth over.

But he was unable to dramatically turn the game, finishing with figures of 1-19, while new-boy Sean Ervine took 1-28 from his eight overs.

The build-up to Hampshire's season, of course, has been dominated by the arrival of new signing Kevin Pietersen.

Unfortunately, though, injury was to delay his scheduled debut.

It was a particularly important blow to Hampshire's batting line-up who could really have done with some added quality and sparkle, especially in the top-order.

Yet it all had started so promisingly.

Skipper Warne won the toss and opted to bat with opening pair Jimmy Adams and Michael Brown putting on 63 for the first wicket.

Brown had looked in particularly good touch, but the removal of Adams for 22 prompted him into a rash stroke as he top-edged an attempted pull off James Averis straight to Jon Lewis.

With both openers departed, it was left to Katich to drop anchor and attempt to rebuild the innings.

But John Crawley was soon dismissed and Lewis quickly accounted for Derek Kenway and Nic Pothas to leave Hampshire reeling on 85-5 having lost five wickets for just 22 runs.

Debutant Ervine offered some brief resistance, but it was not until Warne came together with Katich that Hampshire recovered their momentum.

Warne played a number of attractive strokes on his way to 22 - most notably a lofted cover drive off Alex Gidman to take Hampshire beyond 150 - before succumbing to Kirby.

With Dimi Mascarenhas not fit and Shaun Udal left out as Hampshire opted to play just one spinner, the possibility for a lower-order recovery looked significantly reduced.

And so it proved as Chris Tremlett, Richard Logan and Billy Taylor all came and went quickly and quietly.

With such mediocrity all around him, Katich had come to the conclusion he had better start playing some shots.

And he cut loose in brutal style late in the innings.

First he brought up his 50 with a pulled six off Kirby before smashing Mark Hardinges for successive sixes.

It's only the first day of the first match, but Katich's flurry was Hampshire's only real highlight to a somewhat gloomy start to the season.