But they prospered on a cloudy morning, and Martin was beginning to feel like Alex Tudor when he snicked Peter Hartley. Lloyd then continued where John Crawley and Neil Fairbrother had left off on the first day and when Ian Austin joined him in a brutish mood, they cracked up 77 in 14 exhilarating overs.The only Hampshire player to take any satisfaction from Lancashire’s run feast was the wicketkeeper, Adrian Aymes, but his pleasure was tempered by a painful collision half an hour before lunch. Lancashire started the day securely placed at 329 for 5, with Graham Lloyd and the nightwatchman, Peter Martin, barely set. So happy were Lancashire with this state of affairs that they kept their jack-in-the-box, Muttiah Muralitharan, locked away for a further two hours while the seamers made early inroads into Hampshire’s batting.

In the evening, they made late inroads as well.
When the hosts finally came into bat, saving the follow-on was the height of their ambitions. Asking Lancashire to take first knock on a juicy strip, they watched the visitors bat through Wednesday and crack on yesterday morning, adding a further 163 in 36 overs to finish after lunch at 492. Some things never change – like the bad light and rain that shortened a bright new day.. Lancashire 492 v Hampshire 180-9

SO FAR Hampshire have not found the green, green grass of home much to their liking. Far from being “quote right on” for Channel 4’s new cricket audience they mostly featured cars and beer for the lads. Reeve had just “analysed” how Habib guarded against this, when the batsman was bowled through a gap more “barn-door” than “gate”. Expressing an opinion is always a hostage to fortune in cricket.Finally, unlike ITV’s coverage of Formula One, the adverts proved to be no intrusion into the cricket, coming at the rate of one for a change of end, and three for a dismissal.The only contradiction was the ads themselves.

You could imagine disappointed bowlers dropping off videos in the umpires’ changing-room after close of play, accompanied by a list of local opticians. Otherwise, the “invisible batsman” became an apt image during England’ s second-session collapse.One other innovation, the half-hourly “analyst” spot – technical rather than Freudian – made a more stuttering start. The first two inserts didn’t have much to go on; the opening batsmen’s stances, then their respective batting grips. But as play progressed there was more for Reeve and Simon Hughes to get their teeth into, particularly with the split-screen replays that showed Graham Thorpe and Aftab Habib getting out in exactly the same fashion as they had at Edgbaston.Hughes had also voiced a lunchtime slot entitled “Jargon Buster”, in which he explained the term “through the gate”, the occasion – frequent in England’s history – when the ball passes between bat and pad to hit the wicket. With the batsman also being electronically removed from the screen, the device shows both where the ball pitched and whether it would have hit the stumps. For the moment, the “Snickometer”, a sound-wave graphic indicating the ball catching an edge, is only used after dismissals determined by the umpire’s own senses, so it merely confirms what the viewer already knows.The wicket-to-wicket strip is potentially more controversial, being used yesterday to illuminate a couple of lbw decisions that weren’t given.

Indeed, Cairns was soon laying into the England batsmen in more ways than one. “Bye-bye Thorpey,” were his triumphal words to the departing Surrey hitter, replayed in lip-reading slow-motion for the “in-yer-face” generation. With sound- effects microphones buried near the stumps, and very sharp camera work, the viewer is drawn much closer into the action than previously.The two, much-touted technological innovations – the appallingly named “Snickometer” and the wicket-to-wicket strip – were deployed quite sparingly, perhaps in deference to the umpires. “Someone’s got him up against the dressing-room wall and had a word,” he observed. Fewer dreary anecdotes and more observation will do nicely.In any case, Channel 4 had wisely bought in Richie Benaud, who is not just the best cricket commentator of all time – John Arlott was a close second – but also the best analyst in any sports coverage. Benaud’s ability to spot what is about to happen before it happens is well nigh uncanny, and surely stands him in good stead for his bets on horses.Yesterday morning, he quickly picked up on the fact that New Zealand’s bowler Chris Cairns had more purpose than usual.

With former New Zealand wicketkeeper Ian Smith chipping in waspishly – perhaps a touch gloatingly when Alec Stewart was out, “edge and gone!” – the commentators enjoyed a steady, if unspectacular start. Fortunately it was for Wasim, rather than “Nickers” or “Reefers”. Dropping down a generation to include the likes of the former Hampshire captain Mark Nicholas, the Pakistan captain, Wasim Akram, and the Somerset coach, Dermot Reeve, certainly refreshed the ears, with only one instance of the usual blokeish diminutive being heard. For there was nothing to fear from Channel 4’s Test debut, and a great deal to admire about it, as cricket embraced an inclusive, modern idiom after too many years of blazer-clad complacency on the BBC.
The biggest changes wrought by Channel 4 on the work of their predecessors are in their broadcast personnel and the introduction of several presentational novelties.