Lancashire hit back with the bat at Canterbury
Kent’s future in Division One of LV= Insurance County Championship hung in the balance on Thursday night, after Lancashire reached 126 without loss in their second innings, a deficit of 41.
Joe Denly’s 135 had helped Kent to 494, a first-innings lead of 167, but any hopes of a quick three-day victory faded when Luke Wells and Keaton Jennings both made half-centuries in an unbroken opening partnership, reaching 69 ad 52 not out respectively before bad light halted play at the Spitfire Ground.
Kent had begun day three in a significantly happier place than they’d been 24 hours earlier, on 345 for four on day two in reply to Lancashire’s first innings score of 327 and with Denly unbeaten on 105.
The partnership between Denly and Harry Finch had reached exactly 150 when the latter was bowled for 44 by George Balderson.
Tom Hartley, in for Will Williams, bowled a head-high slow delivery that Denly swatted for six to take Kent past 400. In the next over, the 108th, Balderson bowled a no ball, bringing up a half-century of extras.
Denly finally went when he was lbw to Balderson and Hartley bowled Joey Evison for 12, exposing the tail.
Balderson sent Nathan Gilchrist’s middle-stump cartwheeling for a ten-ball duck, but Aron Nijjar and Matt Quinn took Kent to 447 for eight at lunch.
Quinn was on 22 when he was caught off a Bailey no ball, but he was caught behind two deliveries later without adding to his score.
Nijjar, however, hit the next ball for six and had made 42 before he holed out to Bailey and was caught by Blatherwick, ending the innings.
At that point the most optimistic scenario was a victory inside three days, but Lancashire’s openers Wells and Jennings had raced to 55 without loss when an early tea was taken due to a brief shower and by then the mood around the Spitfire Ground was beginning to darken again.
Kent supporters have already seen this film too many times this season: hefty first innings leads were squandered against Surrey and Notts and the openers eroded the deficit offering barely a chance.
When Yuzvendra Chahal, did find Jennings’ edge he was dropped by Leaning when he was on 42 and bad light stopped play with 11 overs remaining, at precisely the moment the news came through that Middlesex had bowled out Nottinghamshire for a first innings deficit of 18.
Report by ECB Reporters Network
Images by Luke Adams/Dan Adams
