HAMPSHIRE captain Will Smith insists his side can pull off another Great Escape - despite losing their relegation scrap against Surrey by an innings and 13 runs.

With six Specsavers County Championship matches remaining, Hampshire are 23 points adrift of third-from-bottom Surrey after being bowled out for 201 at The Ageas Bowl yesterday - 39 balls shy of saving the game.

But their game in hand on the two sides immediately above them gives them a glimmer of hope that Smith is determined to cling on to - especially as the last six games include trips to their nearest rivals.

“At this stage last year we’d won one and lost five and we’ve now won one and lost three, so to all intents and purposes we’re actually ahead of the game,” said Smith.

“We’re going in the right direction and we’ll try as hard as we possibly can.

“We’ve been hard to beat in a lot of games this year, we just have to keep believing.

“We’ve got the personnel that can do it, batsmen who can score hundreds and bowlers who can take five-fors.

“We just have to put it all together.”

Smith admitted his side was outplayed by Surrey.

He continued: “You have to get over the line whether you are trying to draw a game or win a game and it is evidenced here on many occasions you have to go right to the end.

“We’re bitterly disappointed we couldn’t get over the line and get the extra five points. Points are crucial in our situation.

“They probably had the best of the conditions [after winning] the toss, but we battled manfully.

“The last day things can happen very quickly and they did.

“We knew 80-odd overs was a long time to bat on a day-four wicket but felt, if we could get to tea two or three down, we had a decent chance.

“We were couple more down than that but going into the last hour still thought we had a real chance.

“Credit to Surrey, they set out to get a massive total and then bowl us out twice and they never wavered from it. They out-played us and executed the plan perfectly.”