A cracking piece of fielding from Scott Borthwick saw Shahid Afridi run out without facing a ball and the Royals falling to 0-1 after two deliveries.
The hosts were 26-2 after four overs when James Vince skied a Graham Onions delivery up into the air for Mitchell Claydon to claim.
Opener Jimmy Adams was run out with a direct throw from Phil Mustard in the 6th over with Hampshire 37-3. Hampshire rallied and reached 103-4 before Onions ran out Ervine for 35 in the 15th over.
The most effective of the Hampshire batsmen, Neil McKenzie brought up his fifty with a repeat of his sweep shot that had served him well all inning, only to be trapped lbw for 56 off Mitchell Claydon with Hampshire 150-5 and five deliveries remaining.
Claydon struck again when Dimitri Mascarenhas was caught behind first ball and after sharp fielding throughout the hosts innings the Dynamos restricted Hampshire Royals to 154-6.
The Dynamos started confidently but went on to lose Gordon Muchall in the fourth over, with the total at 22, when he was caught behind off Mascarenhas for 5.
A change to spin for the fifth over saw Danny Briggs claim the wicket of Mustard (12) when he was caught by Dominic Cork with Durham 24-2.
The Dynamos picked up some momentum with David Miller and Ben Stokes in the middle but both fell to the young spinner Briggs in the 10th over, with the former bowled on 10 and the latter stumped on 28, bringing Dale Benkenstein and Ian Blackwell to the middle with 94 runs required for the win.
Briggs claimed a fourth wicket when Benkenstein (3) was caught on the ropes by Adams as he tried to boost the visitors’ total.
Durham were 77-6 and under pressure requiring 80 from 40 deliveries after Gareth Breese was run out for 4 in the 14th over.
Blackwell fell shortly after, becoming Imran Tahir’s only victim of the innings when he was stumped for 9.
Briggs claimed his fifth scalp when Plunkett was caught going for a maximum by Adams with the Dynamos falling to 97-8.
Afridi then went on to have Claydon caught for 1 and then Borthwick was the last man out when he was caught by McKenzie off the same bowler which saw Hampshire claim the win by 55 runs.
At the close of play, Dale Benkenstein said, “We are really disappointed, we can see how they’ve got the results they’ve got in the competition, they know their conditions really well. It all started with the toss really, you want to bat first, we’ve seen the results here and things went their way.
“We started well but had we got a couple of wickets we could have got on top of them. The middle period was down to some ill disciplined bowling or good cricket from their view. Neil McKenzie has been a huge part of their success and played another innings where he was in total control as soon as the ball started spinning. It was always going to be tough if they got above 130-140 and we couldn’t hold them to that.
“The new ball was key for us with their attack, we had to get at least up with the rate, or ahead of it, after six overs otherwise getting 8,9,10’s an over when you’re walking in and don’t know which way it’s spinning is almost impossible. Our best chance was to go hard at front, we set ourselves up but then we lost the wickets.
“We were going to have to play our best to beat the word class spinners that they had. We didn’t get anywhere in the competition last year and we’ve definitely improved and we are starting to move in a positive direction. We’ve had some good performances over the campaign and it’s been a long campaign. You have to hope everything comes together, we were close, we had our opportunities in the field but we didn’t quite capitalise on them and restrict them to a score that was more obtainable for us.”