Opener Jimmy Adams was the first victim of the day, he was caught behind off Stephen Harmison for 18 when the hosts had 31 on the board.
At lunch Hampshire were 99-1, with a couple of lbw appeals from Durham having been denied, but their scoring accelerated in the second session and by tea they had stormed on to 298.
Michael Carberry and Michael Lumb went on to score 150 apiece, taking advantage after each of them were dropped in the early stages of their innings
The pairs second wicket stand of 314 beat the previous highest second wicket total scored against Durham, a record that belonged to Mike Hussey and Phil Jaques from our fixture against Northampton in 2003.
It was a breakthrough for Benkenstein after tea that marked the start of a succession of falling wickets, first to go was Carberry, who was caught by Borthwick on 162 and then former Durham overseas, Neil McKenzie, was bowled by Blackwell for just one an over later.
The new ball was taken in the 88th over and it was Callum Thorp who picked up two further wickets before the close, Lumb, out lbw for 158, and Ervine falling to the same fate for only 8.
Tomlinson (8*) was sent in as night watchman to join Vince (4*) and by the end of the day Hampshire were 273-5.
All the details from the day’s play can be found on our Live Match Chat – www.durhamccc.co.uk/live-match-chat
At the close of play durhamccc.co.uk spoke to Head Coach Geoff Cook, “An interesting day in many ways, the wicket is pretty good, the outfield is frighteningly fast. I thought the first session we bowled, we bowled very well as a group. We could have had three or four of them out comfortably, we dropped a couple of catches, which as with the last game, proved crucial, but really didn’t have an awful lot of luck.
“The middle session is one we’d like to forget, we came on and bowled without the discipline necessary in these conditions. The two left handers were greedy for runs and capitalised on it, then the last session we pulled it back, took some wickets and kept ourselves in the game.
“One thing you don’t fault these guys with is lack of effort and today was an example of that and you saw that in the final session when once we got the breakthrough we made things go in our favour. With the outfield, the equivalent at Emirates Durham would be worth about 270 which keeps it in perspective. This ground is a very unforgiving one to bowl on. If you bowl semi badly, half a bad shot goes for four. It needs the discipline we showed in the first session. There’s an awful lot of interesting cricket to be played in the game yet.”