THE dominance that Hampshire had exerted over their opponents from the beginning to the end of this match was summed up in the field that was set for Chris Tremlett as he strode in to bowl at James Anyon, Warwickshire’s last man.

Six slips, a gully, a short leg and a leg gully hovered around the unfortunate tailender and, as it turned out, Tremlett did not need any of them. He forced Anyon to squeeze a back-foot defensive shot on to his stumps and Hampshire had completed a comprehensive victory that takes them into second place in the table.

Since Shane Warne arrived to breathe life into their season, Hampshire have won both their Liverpool Victoria County Championship matches comprehensively, this success coming after a ten-wicket victory over Middlesex last week. But while Warne is their inspiration, they looked a strong all-round team throughout. After taking five wickets in the first innings, Warne took only two of the eight to fall yesterday as Shaun Udal, James Bruce and Tremlett reaped the rewards of their captain’s parsimony at the other end.

“They’re competitive and aggressive, as you’d expect with Warney, but they’ve also got other good senior players,” Mark Greatbatch, the Warwickshire director of coaching, said. “We didn’t play well enough in both disciplines in the first innings to compete with such a good side.”

There were still 24 overs remaining when Anyon was dismissed and, although Warwickshire had survived 100 overs in their second innings, they never looked likely to escape. In the first innings, Jim Troughton’s century was the only score above 21 and, in their second innings, only Nick Knight reached 30.

Knight was the second man to fall yesterday morning, edging a ball from Sean Ervine that was slanted across him and then Warne finally found a way around Troughton’s front pad, which had been such an effective weapon against him in the first innings. As Troughton looked to pad him away on the off side, Warne tossed the ball up higher and wider, and Troughton looked round to see his off stump clipped.

Udal then chipped in with the wickets of Alex Loudon and Michael Powell, before Bruce took the second new ball to remove the obdurate Dougie Brown and Tony Frost. When Tremlett delivered the coup de grâce, Hampshire whooped like cowboys.

Warwickshire, meanwhile, did not resemble a team who had won their previous two championship matches and they will welcome the days off that they have next week.

One of their players is not so happy at their lack of a championship match. Ian Bell, left out of England’s Test side, will play in the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy against Derbyshire tomorrow. Next week, he is likely to play for the second XI in their three-day match against Leicestershire. Unusually for a centrally contracted player, he is keen to play more cricket.