Gloucestershire need a miracle - or a return of winter weather - to avoid humiliation on the final day's play at Hampshire's Rose Bowl.

At the end of a miserable third day of their CricInfo Championship match they trailed Hampshire by 181 runs with eight second innings wickets standing.

It was a day when nothing went right for the West Countrymen. At the start their bowling was dismembered by former England batsman Robin Smith as he completed the 46th century of his Hampshire career.

Smith offered a single chance when on 84 as he mistimed a pull off Mike Cawdron but a difficult chance was spilled by Jon Lewis at mid on.

Gloucestershire's only successes were to remove Hampshire's other century maker Derek Kenway for 131 and have overseas player Neil Johnson leg before offering no shot to Cawdron.

Smith declared at 350-4 and Hampshire's Alan Mullally claimed Dominic Hewson with his third ball.

Immediately after lunch Matt Windows ran himself out and after brief resistance from Rob Cunliffe and Chris Taylor which saw Gloucestershire reach 91 they then subsided to Mullally's pace and Udal's off spin. The last seven wickets fell for just 42 runs with Mullally finishing with 5-41.

It was little better when they followed on with Cunliffe leg before to Cunliffe with just three on the board and Windows then picked up at short leg off the same bowler eleven runs later but Hewson and Taylor at least got them to the close without any further calamities.

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