Nic Pothas reckons he is batting as well as ever for Hampshire.

Pothas completed a memorable eight days when he followed up his unbeaten 70 against Northants with 83 not out against Gloucestershire Gladiators yesterday.

The wicketkeeper, who also scored 54 against Durham in this season's totesport League campaign, said: "I think that's as well as I've batted for Hampshire.

"Sometimes I can make things a bit complicated because of my will to contribute a bit complex, but I had a good chat with Warney and PT (Paul Terry) and decided to play positively because that's when I play at my best

"The Durham innings added to it, it's been a change of mindset rather than a change of technique, and it seems to be paying off."

Pothas, who scored more runs for Hampshire in the one-day league this season than anyone else - he also topped the averages if you discount the brief appearances of Aussie duo Shane Watson and Michael Dighton - added: "The boys set it up nicely for me and we didn't panic."

Hampshire skipper Shane Warne praised his troops for completing the first objective - to stay in the first division.

He said: "To stay in division one is a good effort, we've played some excellent cricket at times.

"Gloucestershire have been the benchmark of one day cricket and we've beaten them twice this season, so credit to our boys.

Warne added: "It was a pretty good wicket, the boys played well - we thought that if we could keep them to 215 we had done well .

"They got 10-15 runs more than we would have liked but but Mark Alleyne and their wickie (Steven Adshead) played very well at the end."

Gladiators skipper Alleyne, who has been involved with six one-day trophy wins since the start of the 1999 season, knows his side now have to win their last game to ensure first division survival.

He said: "We did very well to get a good competitive total on the board but it was a very good partnership between Pothas and John Crawley.

"We had a good start but we should have gone on and put more pressure on in the middle of their innings."