Hog roasts

8:34am Friday 25th April 2008

MATTHEW Hoggard tore through Hampshire's top order to give Yorkshire a real chance of opening their County Championship season with a victory at Headingley.

The seamer steam-rolled all of Hampshire's top five batsmen on his way to figures of five wickets for 51 runs from his 15 overs - leaving them flailing on 115 for five at the close.

When he was dropped during England's recent tour of New Zealand, former coach Duncan Fletcher remarked that Hoggy had "lost his nip", but there was no evidence to support that theory as he mercilessly ripped through the visitors.

Yorkshire's head of cricket Martin Moxon is convinced that he's still an exceptional bowler.

"I don't think he's lost anything," he said. "He looked better and better as his spell went on, he needs overs under his belt and after tea he bowled beautifully so hopefully he's getting back to what he's capable of."

Hoggard began his demolition job before Hampshire had reached double figures - just seven runs were on the board when he dismissed Michael Brown for a duck, thanks to the safe hands of Andrew Gale, who had already weighed in with a superb 138 earlier in the day before sealing Brown's demise at short leg.

Having been marooned on 99 not out over night, Gale looked nervous and faced 14 balls in total while one shy of his century.

Incredibly, he then nearly brought up the ton with a six as he swept James Tomlinson over third man, the umpire signalling for a maximum before eventually correcting himself and confirming it as just four.

Hoggard got some luck when Jimmy Adams played on for just seven and he then did for Michael Carberry, Tim Bresnan continuing Yorkshire's brilliance in the field with an outstanding full length dive to snaffle the ball at fourth slip.

After tea, Hoggard looked hungry to really put the visitors to the sword and he didn't disappoint with a further two scalps.

First he ended John Crawley's short-lived resistance for 25 with a sublime ball that seamed into the right-hander - completely perplexing the batsmen and thumping into off-stump.

He finished off a fantastic day by trapping Michael Lumb for 11, the former Yorkshire batsmen failing to score well against his old employers.

Earlier Gale's brilliance, and another excellent display with the bat from Ajmal Shahzad with 35, saw Yorkshire fall just two runs short of maximum batting points, Deon Kruis the last man out with the home side on 398.

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