Only the intervention of rain spared Nottinghamshire the embarrassment of losing inside three days to Hampshire at the Rose Bowl.

When rain came there were two overs left and with Hampshire captain Robin Smith about to claim the extra half hour. At that stage Nottinghamshire were a wretched 113 for seven chasing a victory target of 491.

Smith might even now be regretting his decision to bat on deep into the afternoon session before declaring his side's second innings at 352 for eight.

Derek Kenway scored a career-best 166 on a blameless wicket with a six and 26 fours as Hampshire built hungrily on their first innings lead of 138. Kenway batted for five hours before getting under a delivery from Richard Stemp to be caught at the wicket.

Nottinghamshire had no answer to Kenway or to Neil Johnson who shared in a stand of 153 for the fourth wicket. Johnson, Dimitri Mascarenhas and Adrian Aymes all took advantage of a Nottinghamshire attack which appeared to be playing for the declaration.

Any hopes Nottinghamshire supporters had of their side repeating the heroics against Worcestershire earlier this summer when they overhauled a target of 458 quickly disappeared.

At nine for three and then 39 for five defeat became inevitable. Alan Mullally did much of the damage with figures of four for 48 but there was some indifferent batting and some great catching, not least by man-of-the-day Kenway in the slips to send back Kevin Pietersen.

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