It is a strange competition when a team can begin the final game faced with the prospect of finishing as champions or within a whisker of relegation. Either scenario was possible, albeit unlikely for Hampshire. For Nottinghamshire things were much simpler: a victory would bring a second championship in four years, and after a day when nine Hampshire wickets fell, they will feel they have taken a significant step towards achieving it.

Significant, yes, but no more than that. To feel a little more sanguine about their title prospects, and to avoid anxious end-of-week phone calls to Taunton and Canterbury, Nottinghamshire will want a sizeable first-innings lead. This dry, cracked, low-bouncing pitch is not easy to survive on, even harder to score freely on and, after a week of bluff and double bluff, Hampshire have the services of Imran Tahir, their well-travelled, leg-spinning trump card, to call upon.

After suddenly producing Tahir, like a rabbit from a hat, when most thought he was in South Africa preparing to play for Titans, Hampshire also announced that he has signed a new two-year contract. He would dearly love to celebrate that with a chance to defend a target on a wearing pitch.

A rain-affected season and a points system that encourages captains to be cautious has resulted in a concertinaed first division table, but positive cricket should be applauded and since Nottinghamshire have won five games - more than anyone bar Durham - they would be worthy champions. It helps if your groundsman can produce result-orientated pitches and only three matches this year have been drawn at Trent Bridge. Ironically, Surrey, who have been relegated, are the only team to have scored more than 300 in the first innings of a first-class game here. Once Chris Read decided, after correcting himself, to bowl first, Hampshire never looked like becoming the second.

Hampshire's top eight could draw lots to decide a batting order, so little difference is there in ability between them, and it was left to Nic Pothas and Dimitri Mascarenhas, numbers six and eight respectively, with a couple of painstaking, out-of-character forties, to give the scoreboard some respectability once Hampshire had slumped to 96 for six. That both these free-scoring batsmen spent the best part of 2 hours each accumulating their runs emphasises both how difficult the pitch is for batsmen to express themselves and how much pressure Nottinghamshire's bowlers applied.

Read has a pleasant task as captain, for his side contains bowlers for all conditions: pace and hostility from Charlie Shreck and Darren Pattinson, who between them added six more to the 98 championship wickets they had taken before yesterday's play; containment from Mark Ealham and Andre Adams and spin, of contrasting varieties, from Graeme Swann and Samit Patel. It is a well-balanced attack and Read handled it thoughtfully.

Yesterday, Pattinson was the pick. He looked weary at times, as well he might in his first full English county season, but with his strong, muscular, repeatable action it is easy to see why the selectors think highly of him. He is also a contender for the biggest plates of meat in the English game - great, whopping size 13s that came bounding in for 19 overs. He picked up three wickets: Liam Dawson, leg-before to a full, straight ball, then Sean Ervine and Pothas, both to drag-ons once frustration had got the better of them.

After the opprobrium heaped on Pattinson earlier in the year, a championship medal would be a fine end to an eventful season. Nottinghamshire's batsmen have some work to do first.

Scoreboard

Hampshire: First Innings
M A Carberry c Read b Shreck 23
M J Brown c Read b Ealham 29
M J Lumb lbw b Adams 3
C C Benham lbw b Adams 9
S M Ervine b Pattinson 18
N Pothas b Pattinson 44
L A Dawson lbw b Pattinson 0
*A D Mascarenhas c Jefferson b Shreck 41
C T Tremlett c and b Shreck 4
Imran Tahir not out 23
J A Tomlinson not out 1
Extras (b 1, lb 3) 4
Total (9 wkts, 87 overs) 199

Fall of wickets: 1-46, 2-53, 3-63, 4-74, 5-96, 6-96, 7-151, 8-166, 9-177.

Bowling: Shreck 18-6-48-3; Pattinson 19-9-43-3; Adams 15-6-26-2; Ealham 16-2-41-1; Swann 15-5-22-0; Patel 4-0-15-0.

Nottinghamshire: W I Jefferson, B M Shafayat, M A Wagh, S R Patel, A G Prince, G P Swann, *C M W Read, M A Ealham, A R Adams, D J Pattinson, C E Shreck.

Umpires: T E Jesty and R A Kettleborough.