MATCH PREVIEW: Kent v Lancashire
Lancashire head into the final three games of the summer knowing they realistically have to win all three of them to have a chance of winning promotion.
Kent v Lancashire
Rothesay County Championship, Division Two
Monday September 8 - Thursday September 11, 2025, 10.30am
The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence, Canterbury
The Red Rose county are currently placed sixth in the Division Two table with two wins, three defeats and six draws to their name. After 11 of 14 games, they have 127 points and are 38 points adrift of the second-placed Glamorgan.
Lancashire travel to Cardiff to face Glamorgan during the final round of matches later in this month, and we still have 72 points available.
In this order, Derbyshire, Middlesex, Gloucestershire and - below Lancashire - Northamptonshire are amongst the chasing pack.
Kent are bottom of the table and the only team out of the running. They sit on 97 points having lost five of 11 games so far. They have won twice this season.
This is the first game following the break for the Metro Bank One-Day Cup and the Hundred. Last time out, at the end of July and start of August, Lancashire were beaten at Emirates Old Trafford by Glamorgan. Kent drew at home to league leaders Leicestershire.
Lancashire and Kent have just met at Emirates Old Trafford in the quarter-finals of the Vitality Blast.
The Red Rose hope to make it two from two having won that one by three wickets to advance to Saturday’s Finals Day.
Opposition
Coach Adam Hollioake will almost certainly use the next three games to find out about some of the club’s youngsters given they can’t achieve promotion.
Kent actually won their first two games of the season, away at Northamptonshire and at home to Middlesex, in April. But things have fallen away quite dramatically since then.
Top-order batter Daniel Bell-Drummond has captained Kent for much of the season but handed over the reins to all-rounder Grant Stewart for the last Championship match against Leicestershire at Canterbury having suffered a knee injury.
Bell-Drummond hasn’t played a game of any sort since the end of July.
Opening batter Ben Compton is the leading run-scorer in Division Two with 1,198 to his name. He is, in fact, the top run-scorer in either division of the Championship.
Compton, the grandson of Denis and cousin of Nick - both former England internationals, has scored five hundreds this season. He scored a career best 221 last time out against Leicestershire.
Former Lancashire leg-spinner Matthew Parkinson leads the way with 28 wickets, including 7-137 in that high-scoring draw with the Foxes.
Kent have recently re-signed two of their former players ahead of 2026, with top-order batter Sam Northeast returning from Glamorgan and seam-bowling all-rounder Matt Milnes coming back from Yorkshire. Both will remain with their current clubs until the end of the summer.
Fast bowler Nathan Gilchrist is leaving for Warwickshire.
Opposition player to watch
In the last four years, opening batter Ben Compton has been one of the most prolific batters in the whole of the County Championship, and Lancashire are well aware of his capabilities.
The experienced 31-year-old has, since his debut for Kent at the start of 2022, scored 3,959 runs in 51 Championship appearances with 16 fifties, 10 hundreds and one double century.
Compton, who only made his first-class debut at 25 - for Nottinghamshire, is a watchful but skilful left-hander.
He scored Championship centuries in his first three innings for Kent, including twin centuries in a defeat against Lancashire at Canterbury. He was 104 not out in the first innings and last man out in the second with 115 to his name as the Red Rose won that game by 10 wickets.
Compton was capped by his county earlier this summer.
In six Championship matches against Lancashire, he has scored three hundreds and two fifties. He has totalled 591 runs in that time at an average of 59.10.
Previous meeting
These two counties drew at Blackpool in late June, a high-scoring affair which was affected by the weather but saw Lancashire push hard for the win on the final day but fall just short in the end.
Ben Compton’s first-innings 135 led Kent to 374 all out, with George Balderson’s seam accounting for three wickets.
In reply, the Red Rose racked up 639-9 declared as Luke Wells (152), Josh Bohannon (124) and Australian Ashton Turner (154) all starred. The latter’s innings was brilliantly destructive, coming off 148 balls to set up an overnight declaration ahead of day four.
Lancashire led by 265, and they kicked the door ajar further by reducing the visitors to 11-2, including locum opener Matthew Parkinson falling.
Halfway through the day, Kent were on the ropes at 116-7, with Aussie Chris Green’s off-spin accounting for four wickets. But then came frustration.
Joey Evison, with 77, and Grant Stewart shared an eighth-wicket win 182 before the latter fell for a counter-attacking 130 off 122 balls with nine sixes.
When he fell to captain Sir James Anderson, Kent were 298-8 and 33 ahead. They swelled that lead further and finished on 328-8, denying the Red Rose their first victory of the campaign.
What they said
“We’ve still got our hopes high for the Championship.”
Steven Croft has his eyes firmly fixed on promotion and has urged full focus from his players as they tackle games against Kent and Glamorgan away and, sandwiched in between, Middlesex at home.
“I think the last few games of the Championship period we've done really well, barring the Glamorgan game,” continued the county’s interim head coach.
“I think we had two sessions where we just drifted a bit and it cost us.
“So, moving forward, we'll have to keep that in mind. We just can't turn up.
“You've got to be there and on it every day, every session and every ball. And that’s what we’ll be doing.”
How’s Stat!
Lancashire are unbeaten in five Championship matches at Canterbury, dating back to 2015. They have won three and drawn two.
The three they have won - last season and in 2022 and 2021 - have all come by significant margins, two by an innings and the other by 10 wickets.