Lancashire 374 (Salt 103, Mitchell 68, Balderson 51, Organ 6-67) and 142 for 4 (Vilas 64*) beat Hampshire 142 (Barker 44, Williams 3-14, Bailey 3-29) and 371 (Vince 87, Middleton 77, Gubbins 62, Balderson 3-84) by six wickets
There was no twist in this four-day tale. A morning that began on time under the blue and cloudless sky with Dane Vilas playing Mohammad Abbas serenely into the covers and barking a "no" to his partner, Josh Bohannon, ended 68 minutes later with the Lancashire skipper late-cutting the same bowler to the Grosvenor Road boundary.
That took Vilas to 64, his first half-century of the season, and so barely a quarter-of-an-hour after Yorkshire had won their first Championship match of the season, Lancashire had achieved the same feat, leaving the anoraks to wonder how long it was since the two counties had waited so deep into the summer for such a modest triumph. And all this on the day when it had been announced that neither county would be hosting an Ashes Test in 2027, a year in which it might be a little grim up north.
In Southport, by contrast, any concerns were more local and immediate. Before the players had stopped shaking hands with everyone who had taken any role in the match, the chairs that has been put out in strict and serried rows only four or five days previously were being folded up and put away.
In fairness, no one had put those seats under undue strain by sitting on their edges. The few hundred spectators that had taken advantage of free admission and turned up on another glorious morning had seen what they expected to see without alarm or worry. The mood of the morning had been summed up by Luke Wood, who was not playing in the game, strolling around the boundary en route to the dug out with three syrup-strewn ice-creams in each hand.
Hampshire's successes were desultory. Josh Bohannon stroked two cover drives before being smartly caught one-handed to his right by James Vince off Felix Organ for 37 and Daryl Mitchell smacked Kyle Abbott over the long-off boundary before he tickled Abbas down the leg side to Ben Brown.
Other appeals from the Hampshire fielders were loud but they carried more hope than expectation. Instead, there was a gentle acceptance from both sets of players that the result of this match was pencilled in and that indelible ink would soon follow. Rob Jones arrived and swept Organ for successive fours before driving his next ball for a third. That left Vilas to administer the coup de grâce, a task he completed with the relish of a man who had scored only 84 runs in eight innings before he strode out to bat with Bohannon on Tuesday evening.
The victory means that Lancashire have extended their unbeaten run in four-day cricket to 14 matches. On the other hand, it was also the Old Trafford side's first Championship win since last September when they secured the runners-up place with an innings win against a Surrey side who were already celebrating the title.
"The victory felt great, firstly to get the win because we knew it would be a tough chase," said Vilas. "We'd played some good cricket coming into this game and we stuck together as a team and did the right things and got a good reward. We were a bit unsure about the pitch, with it being so dry. We knew if we bowled first we would have to bowl really well and every single bowler did that."
Meanwhile, the caravan moves on from Trafalgar Road to other precious cricket fields. On Friday some of these Lancashire players will be enjoying the lively atmosphere of Wantage Road on a T20 evening while Hampshire's cricketers will be taking on Sussex at Hove.
Before long, Southport will be a memory, one venue among many in a long season. Yet even as the chairs are being placed on pallets and the paraphernalia of professional cricket put away, members at Southport and Birkdale are hoping they get another game in 2024 and the chance to experience the exhaustion that now engulfs them.
