THE Rose Bowl was no venue for entertainment yesterday. It was a cold, murky, damp, windy, unforgiving place, and that was just for the spectators. Hampshire, who were put in, had to contend with darting movement off the seam from an endless supply of medium pacers.

Only John Crawley, who looked to collect runs through deflections, chiefly to fine leg, coped to any extent. In addition to this, building an innings was an exacting task in that the players were constantly on and off the field. Only 29 overs were bowled on a day on which there was a late start, four interruptions and an early finish.

Hampshire lost Jimmy Adams in the opening over, yorked by Andrew Hall. Michael Brown also went for a duck, failing to get on top of a forcing shot off Simon Cook and edging to first slip. When Michael Carberry was bowled by Hall, the ball coming off the bottom of his bat as he attempted to leave it alone, Hampshire were 38 for three.

In his first championship appearance of the season, Hall, the South Africa all-rounder, returned the figures of a typical English seam bowler of yesteryear: 12-5-17-2. There was a wicket, too, for Darren Stevens, who moved one away from Dominic Thornely and had him caught behind the wicket.

Before the rain set in, Crawley nudged, glided and deflected his way to 33, demonstrating a technique admirably suited to the purpose in these conditions.