Perfectly balanced then, and what the Championship should be about, but it still needed something more substantial to lift the interest level.Most of the batsmen got in, but none of them stayed around genuinely to capitalise. After losing Jason Laney in the day's fifth over to a catch at second slip, Raj Maru and the captain John Stephenson ensured that there were no other early Hampshire errors. Presumably the notion was to stretch the lead to something above 300, and thus provide a serious examination for a Surrey team aspiring to the Championship.It was an admirable objective, to which Hampshire applied themselves well. In those terms, the contest at Northlands Road looked likely to meet the essential criteria.

Yet it was strangely uninvolving stuff yesterday until rain shortened proceedings by 46 overs, and while it may be heresy to disparage such apparent symmetry, it was difficult to feel too aggrieved.Hampshire, resuming on nought for no wicket, set out to fulfil the third part of the bargain, having batted for all of the first day and bowled out Surrey, 28 behind, on the second. Drakes, however, removed both in quick succession to leave the match fascinatingly poised.. Hampshire 359 and 150-4 Surrey 331 Perhaps the ideal structure of a four-day match is for each innings to last a day, each accumulating about 350 runs, with the match being won or lost sometime in the final hour on the fourth. Simmons maintained Leicestershire's momentum with a mixture of cavalier strokes and a modicum of good fortune to reach 36 before Lewry found the edge.When Lewry bowled Aftab Habib off the inside edge and had Millns leg before with consecutive balls, Leicestershire had only their left-handers, Parsons and Paul Nixon, to give them a competitive advantage. After Wells had his off-stump plucked out by a shooter from Ed Giddins, Maddy and Ben Smith added 105 in 25 overs before Bill Athey's typically neat catch at backward-point cost Smith his half- century. Having batted almost two and a half hours for 18 on Thursday, he was almost expansive yesterday, getting to 50 in two hours.His dismissal, edging to the wicket-keeper off Lewry, was a disappointing end to a compact display.

Vince Wells, with 657 Championship runs behind him this season, took the eye with two leg-side boundaries off the luke-warm Vasbert Drakes and a very positive cover drive off Lewry, but it was young Maddy who went on to a major score - a Championship-best 68. I didn't believe it until the day I was dropped."What made it all the harder was that he never said anything to my face. The few days after I was left out for the first time were very dark I'll never forget them. In truth, I don't want to."Dwyer offered few plausible reasons for his decision to leave out Campese for the annual Bledisloe Cup match with the All Blacks, but after 91 internationals Campese had come to the end of a long rugby road.

The man himself, though, refused to take the hint and when his unlikely replacement in the Australian squad, the full-back Rob Kafer, broke a leg in training, Campese was recalled. Even then, though, a cold night on the bench beckoned until Daniel Herbert became another injury victim and Campese was back in the action. Then it was Dwyer's turn to find he was on the way out.A new coach, Greg Smith, was appointed, with a simple approach - "if you're one of the best two wingers in Australia you're in my team," he said. Campese has been there ever since.It has clearly been a stroke of fortune for Campese, but he does not expect it to bring a fortune with it.