HAMPSHIRE extracted everything they could from a rain-affected draw against Warwickshire at The County Ground.

But as Hampshire trousered 12 points yesterday it only revealed how thin the line between tight competitive cricket and a dreary spectacle can be.

Having lost a day and a half of the PPP Healthcare Championship match, the only unresolved question was the divvy-up of the bonus points. The devil will take the hindmost into Division Two at the end of the season and a point gleaned here or lost there could be the difference between heaven and hell.

Having got maximum batting points, Hampshire's aim was to get the full bowling monty and they did it thanks in no small part to a Trojan effort from Peter Hartley.

In the process, though, they were unable to deny Warwickshire only their second maximum batting points haul this season.

It produced cut and thrust cricket for peanuts. It's the sort of cricket mentality the ECB want, to tough it out and give nothing away to the opposition, just like in Australia.

That's laudable enough, but it's produced a sterile game Down Under where nobody watches State games.

David Hemp's 69 was Warwickshire's top score and his 132-run partnership with Penney provided the backbone of their innings.

But most of the honour went to Hartley. At an age when most bowlers are thinking about putting their feet up, he appears to be just warming up.

Even at 39, he's prepared to bend his back and produce the odd snorter. He kept the ball up to the bat all day, inducing batsmen to drive.

His 5-88 in 27.2 overs shows why Hampshire need to try and extract at least another season from his creaking knees.

He varied his pace superbly, and almost mugged Dougie Brown with the slower ball he popped up to Derek Kenway at square-leg.

In a match where not one batsman had his stumps disturbed, there were a high proportion of leading edges, suggesting a few batsmen's timing was out.

In contrast to Hampshire's last ball scramble for their bonus points, overs were never an issue with Warwickshire, which made Ashley Giles's attempted pull off Hartley with just six runs needed, difficult to explain.

Not that Hampshire were complaining. It gave them their full bowling count before things fizzled out to a draw.

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