He might have had his entire left knee reconstructed but Sean Ervine still began his second Hants season with an inspirational all-round show.

A career threatening cartilage injury to the Zimbabwean overshadowed Hampshire's last championship match, against Nottinghamshire at The Rose Bowl back in September.

But since then Ervine has displayed outstanding powers of recovery in order to begin the season as a specialist batsman, never mind being strong enough to bowl as well.

After beginning the second day of the championship opener at Old Trafford on 6 and with his team 139-7, Ervine helped Hampshire to a relatively respectable 194 with an unbeaten 44, before taking a wicket with his second ball and recording figures of 2-17.

The 23-year-old has shown Alan Shearer-like character to bounce back from an injury that would have finished some players.

The wonders of modern science, and his relative youth, have been on his side but to perform as he did at Old Trafford yesterday, albeit off a shortened run up, was bordering on the miraculous.

Ervine ran out of partners when a brute of a ball found the shoulder of James Bruce's bat, to end a gutsy innings from Hampshire's last man.

But Ervine's 44 not out from 88 balls, which included three fours, had already given his teammates hope.

So did a probing opening spell from Bruce, who accounted for Mark Chilton and Mal Loye, with carbon copy deliveries that found the Lancastrians' outside edges in successive overs.

Bruce saw off Chilton and Loye in the space of five deliveries and was on course for career best figures when Iain Sutcliffe became the fifth batsman to edge into the hands of Nic Pothas late in the day.

Sutcliffe, who was linked with Hampshire at the end of last season, batted for more than three hours for his 39 on a two-paced wicket.

But by the time he had gone so too had dangerman Stuart Law and the inexperienced Paul Horton, both caught by Pothas during Ervine's excellent spell.

Richard Logan had been dismissed by the catch of the match, an outstanding dive and two handed snaffle from debutant Tom Smith at third slip, before failing to reproduce his early season form with the ball.

But the form of Ervine and Bruce, who both bowled from the Stretford End, and a debut wicket for medium pacer Dominic Thornely, whose inswing accounted for Luke Sutton, has dragged Hampshire right back into this match.

Bruce equalled career best figures for Hampshire last season against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham College, when he took 3-42 before being replaced upon Chris Tremlett's return from Edgbaston, where he had been on 12th man duty for England.

But Bruce looks set to be a regular all season on yesterday's display and now has every chance of claiming a maiden five wicket haul.

Meanwhile, Pothas, having caught Lancashire's top five, is two dismissals away from what would be a new Hampshire record of seven in an innings.