HAMPSHIRE manager Paul Terry has challenged his top order to start scoring big runs.

Michael Brown's centuries against Surrey and Yorkshire are the only hundreds by a Hampshire batsman in the championship this season.

And the top five have not scored a half-century between them in the last two matches.

But that has not prevented all-rounder Sean Ervine from being dropped for this week's match at third-placed Warwickshire, despite helping to secure the draw against Kent at Canterbury on Saturday with an unbeaten 56 at number six.

Shane Warne has admitted that Ervine "could easily play as a batsman", and Terry is hoping the top five respond to the competition for places by finding their best form at Edgbaston this week.

He said: "We've been disappointing in that we haven't made the most of starts.

"We weren't quite at our best against Kent and need to start being more ruthless."

Hampshire slipped to 85-6 in the first innings of last week's match against Kent and it needed Ervine and Dimitri Mascarenhas's unbroken sixth-wicket stand to earn a draw.

But Terry has shown faith in his top order while making two changes for this week's game at Warwickshire - recalling Nic Pothas in place of Tom Burrows and James Bruce for Ervine.

Pothas returns after recovering from the foot infection that kept him out of the last match at Kent.

Terry continued: "The wicket flattened out against Kent as the match progressed so it would have been nice to have nailed a big score after bowling them out for 199. We need to start batting well as a group."

Chris Benham will be disappointed not to have earned a recall after making 82 in Hampshire II's defeat against a strong Warwickshire side in the second XI championship at Moseley CC last week.

But Bruce is included in the squad, having had to make way for Ervine at Canterbury.

Michael Carberry struggled in his first appearance of the season at Kent but will be hoping to rediscover the form that won him an England A spot on the ground where he scored his maiden Hampshire hundred last season.

Shaun Udal is also in the 12-man party but is likely to be the one to make way as the weather forecast for Birmingham this week is not good.

Hampshire have not lost at Edgbaston since 1998 but the anticipated rain makes a fourth draw of the season for both sides the most likely result.

That would not suit either with Yorkshire and Durham occupying the top two places with nearly a third of the season gone.

Hampshire (from): Adams, Brown, Crawley, Lumb, Carberry, Pothas, Mascarenhas, Warne, Udal, Tremlett, Clark, Bruce.