FAST scoring at the Rose Bowl is not so easily achieved as it can be at Trent Bridge, so Lancashire need not necessarily be downcast that they have lost two more points on the leaders after a nicely balanced opening day in the sunshine and buffeting breezes yesterday.

Having left no doubt about their positive intentions by batting first despite some early dampness in the pitch and by including James Anderson despite the insistence of the England medics that he must bowl no more than 12 overs a day, Lancashire were unable to find a century-maker despite fine innings by Mal Loye and Stuart Law in particular, but they still have a chance of maximum batting points.

For Hampshire, James Bruce took wickets with both new balls to confirm the breakthrough he has made this season and Greg Lamb, preferred to Shaun Udal as the off-spinning foil to Shane Warne, justified his selection by claiming the two premier wickets. As a superior batsman to Udal, he may just have signalled the beginning of the end for that durable stalwart, but Udal, the vice-captain, is unlikely to relinquish his place without a battle.

Lamb certainly spun the ball, bowling Loye through the gate when well on the way to what would have been his seventh championship century of the season, several of them scored when, like yesterday, the chips were down. Law, too, looked like easing his way to three figures when he flicked an off break off his legs to mid-wicket soon after tea, a stroke that betrayed the pace of the pitch, on the slow side of easy.

It is the surface treated with a different loam on the advice of Chris Wood, the ECB’s pitch expert, and it played well enough to satisfy Tony Pigott, the pitch inspector, although it has lost pace since the match in June when Hampshire overwhelmed Nottinghamshire, not least because of Bruce’s bustling pace. He beat the calm Mark Chilton three times in successive balls early in an opening partnership of 63 that eased Lancashire nerves before Dimitri Mascarenhas showed once again why Warne rates him so highly by claiming Iain Sutcliffe off what must have been a thin outside edge.

James Tomlinson, playing his first championship match since 2004 and one of two left-arm over bowlers used by Warne to create rough, also got considerable life with the new ball, but it was Bruce who got one to lift and leave Chilton before Loye and Law shared the day’s central partnership.

Loye’s dismissal came as a surprise, not least to himself, after an innings in which he had invested his off-side strokes with an almost oriental flourish, but it was a feather in Lamb’s cap and it was no less deservedly followed up by Bruce when he had Nathan Astle brilliantly caught low to his right by Warne at second slip.

Luke Sutton and Glen Chapple retrenched effectively but Warne decided it was time for the new ball after 97 overs and Bruce and Mascarenhas obliged him by hitting Chapple’s middle stump and Dominic Cork’s off stump.

Cork has told his employers that suggestions that he might become Warwickshire captain next year are no more than rumours and no official approach has been made to Lancashire. Certainly, no one will be trying harder when the hunt for bowling points starts today in the knowledge that the weather forecast for tomorrow is more promising for Southampton than it is for Nottingham.

• SHOWING immaculate timing, David Fulton scored 155, his highest score for four years, for Kent against Middlesex at Canterbury yesterday. A committee meeting tonight will decide the fate of Fulton, 34, and Martin Saggers. The already tight budget has been squeezed by Geraint Jones not being awarded an ECB central contract.

  Lee Goddard, 23, scored a maiden first-class half-century in possibly his final game for Derbyshire against Surrey at Derby. The reserve wicketkeeper will not be offered a full-time contract for next summer.

  An unbeaten 87 off 116 balls by Alex Gidman and half-centuries from Hamish Marshall and Chris Taylor enabled Gloucestershire to reach 342 for five against Glamorgan at Cardiff. Philip Weston, Gloucestershire’s opening batsman, has been released at his own request.