CRICKET: There was a lot of talk before this game. Talk of catching an under-strength Hampshire on the hop, talk of Ireland's overseas players dominating the reigning C&G Trophy champions and talk of kicking off the season in sensational style, claiming a top county scalp live on Sky Sports.
It was all just talk. Even without their superstars Shane Warne and Kevin Pietersen, Hampshire put in a solid performance to beat Ireland by eight wickets in glorious April sunshine at Castle Avenue, teaching the home side a stern lesson in the process.
And so much for Ireland's two overseas professionals. One of them, Shahid Afridi, didn't even turn up and the other, Saqlain Mushtaq, looked out of touch. One wonders if the Irish Cricket Union is getting value for its money.
That said, the ICU assures us Afridi will arrive from Pakistan this week and will play in both games next weekend (against Gloucestershire in Bristol on Sunday and Glamorgan in Cardiff the following day). And on this performance, they definitely need him.
But as season openers go, it wasn't without its positive points. Jeremy Bray batted very well for his 59, David Langford-Smith, on his debut, got the new ball to zip around early on without having any luck and generally the players look sharp in the field.
They will know, however, the bowlers need to improve their general consistency and the batsmen need to build partnerships if they are to be competitive in this tournament.
Despite the defeat, Saqlain was still remarkably upbeat. "I had good fun today," he said. "Everyone has been very friendly, especially the guys in the team and hopefully we can improve upon this performance next weekend.
"This is a wake-up call for us." The former Pakistan Test player registered respectable figures of 1-38 off nine but never really had the opposition in any trouble.
"I bowled okay but I didn't enjoy it really because I was hit on the back of my knee while I was batting so I bowled nine overs in a lot of pain. Next week will be better," he said.
National coach Adrian Birrell was making no excuses for the performance.
"With the bat we should have got another 60 or 70 runs after making a good start. But then we just bowled really badly. You don't get away with mediocre balls at this level and we bowled too many of them. We were rusty and it showed," he said, adding that his team would "bounce back" next week.
At one early stage in the game, it looked like Ireland could upset the visitors by registering a serious total. Hampshire captain Shaun Udal won the toss and, not surprisingly given the early season conditions, inserted the Irish with the view to getting on top early.
But despite losing Dominick Joyce lbw to James Bruce with the score on just 16, Eoin Morgan and Jeremy Bray set the Ireland ball rolling with a free-scoring partnership to bring the total up to 82 in the 19th over. But when Morgan was out, caught at fine leg, Andre Botha followed the very next over and the game entered a slow, stagnant period.
At one stage a total in excess of 250 had looked possible but Udal, Bruce and Sean Ervine bowled very tight lines to retard Ireland's strike rate.
Only Bray seemed really comfortable and while his innings was laden with dashing cover drives, off front and back foot, his side really needed him to carry on and amass a big score. But shortly after raising his bat for his half-century he was run out.
In the end, they were probably reasonably relieved to get past 200 with Kyle McCallan (18), Johnston (21) and Langford-Smith (16 not out) all contributing in the latter stages. It helped also that Hampshire offered up 49 runs by way of extras, the sixth highest number in the C&G Trophy's history.
Hampshire never looked like faltering in the run chase though. Despite Langford-Smith causing some problems with the new ball he was still very expensive and Nic Pothas was soon into his groove, hitting 69 before he fell lbw to Botha. John Crawley (76 not out) batted very steadily and guided the side home with 16.3 overs and eight wickets to spare.
