County Championship: Hampshire beat Nottinghamshire to lead title race

Hampshire spinner Liam Dawson's five-for was the fourth of his first-class career

Hampshire moved to the top of the Division One table with a 122-run win over previous leaders Nottinghamshire.

Liam Patterson-White earlier took a career-best 5-41 for Notts as Hampshire totalled 178 in their second innings.

They will be looking to secure their first title since 1973 when they face Lancashire at Aigburth next week.

• Relieve the third day's play as it happened

The 20 points earned for the win put Hampshire four clear of second-placed Lancashire, who completed a 10-wicket victory over Somerset earlier in the day.

And they will remain top no matter whether Yorkshire or Warwickshire win at Headingley, where the home side need another 174 on the final day with seven wickets left following Tuesday's washout.

When that game is completed, Notts will drop to fourth but remain in contention as they will be only 6.5 points behind Hampshire going into their home match against Yorkshire.

The final round of fixtures for all sides begins on Tuesday, 21 September.

Spin the deciding factor

Hampshire began day three on 133-7 and managed to add 45 valuable runs in 15 overs before they were finally dismissed.

All three wickets were taken by Patterson-White and the amount of turn he achieved was a warning of just how tough the run chase would be for the visitors.

Mohammad Abbas made the initial breakthrough as England opener Haseeb Hameed was caught at short leg by Organ for eight.

The Pakistan pace bowler then broke a stand of 44 between Ben Slater (25) and Ben Duckett (33) by having the latter leg-before playing across the line.

It was then that Dawson and Organ took over to run through the rest of the Notts batting line-up.

They slumped from 72-2 to 97-7, with Tom Moores dragging the ball into his own stumps as he tried to reverse sweep Organ's off-spin.

Joey Evison became only the third batsman to reach double figures but Brett Hutton was bowled by Organ and Luke Fletcher fell lbw to Dawson to leave Hampshire just one wicket away five overs from the scheduled close.

Evison was last to go for 22 as he pushed forward defensively to Dawson and Nick Gubbins took a smart one-handed catch at silly mid-off, giving the left-arm spinner his first five-for since 2015.

The victory gives Hampshire an extra day off before T20 Blast Finals Day at Edgbaston on Saturday when they will try to complete the first leg of a potential double.

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