HAMPSHIRE HAWKS may not have held their catches but they held their nerve to beat Derbyshire Scorpions and maintain their challenge at the top of Division Two of the National League.

Never mind the quality, feel the width and third-placed Hampshire will be happy with a win from a low-scoring, low tempo game that still managed to lurch the full 90-over distance.

It never ceases to amaze how a match in which less than 300 runs were scored can still expand to fill its allotted time span.

Hampshire's 155-9 looked low and about as easy to defend as the Alamo, but they managed it comfortably, thanks to some quality bowling at the death as Scorpions lost six wickets for 21 to collapse to 139 all out.

It all ended well for Hampshire who got off to an awful start when Jason Laney was caught behind off Dominic Cork's first ball of the match, as the decision to bat on winning the toss looked like backfiring.

Derek Kenway top-scored with 29 as Hampshire subsided to 48-4, with their best partnership between Will Kendall and Lawrie Prittipaul adding 40 for the fifth wicket.

Cork returned to nibble out Kendall and Paul Aldred kept a tight rein with figures of 3-17 from his nine overs.

Derbyshire grabbed the initiative from the off, with Graeme Welch sent in to open as a pinch-hitter, only to swat all around one from Mascarenhas.

Bailey looked as though he would stitch Derbyshire's reply together, especially as he was given two lives.

The luckless Laney added to his first-baller by grassing an easy chance at point when Bailey had made 16, and he offered a hard chance to Kendall in the gulley when he was in the 30s.

Bailey also survived a run-out, appearing to be short of his ground but getting the benefit from umpire Merv Harris whose view was obscured by Udal running across him.

At 118-4 Derbyshire looked well on course. Cork was dropped by Mullally at mid-off, but that wasn't too expensive as Chris Tremlett bowled the England all-rounder to trigger Derbyshire's slow, lingering death.

Jamie Pyemont was bowled by Neil Johnson, and Bailey's patience ran out as he saw the sands slipping away.

Hampshire's bowlers kept their nerve, bowling straight and tightly to give Derbyshire nothing to hit.

The runs dried up to the point where they scored 10 in four overs and their target graph rose at steeply as a skateboard ramp.

Bailey's 40 runs was top-score in the game, patiently assembled off 97 balls with just two boundaries.

But with partners running out, he decided to get on the hurry-up, and his attempt to loft Udal to mid-on only resulted in the ball in Tremlett's safe bucket hands.

It all went pear-shaped after that. Mullally bowled Aldred and then having Alex Edwards caught by Mascarenhas.

Tremlett provided the coup de grace by bowling Wharton to finish with impressive figures of 3-15 off 8.2 overs, two of which were maidens, with Mullally again proving his class on an up-and-down wicket with 3-19.