CB40: Denly gives his reaction to Hampshire hundred

The St Lawrence dressing room was somewhat subdued on Sunday evening following Kent“s nail-biting two-run Clydesdale Bank 40 League defeat to Hampshire.

Needing 13 to win from the final over of the game, Kent“s fifth-wicket pair of Joe Denly (pictured), who finished unbeaten with 102, and Azhar Mahmood (25*), could only muster 10 runs as Spitfires slipped to a third defeat of the Group C campaign.

“It“s always nice scoring runs but the emotion was more disappointment on my behalf afterwards,” admitted Denly after posting Kent“s first limited overs hundred of the summer.

He added: “When you“re the one out there chasing runs down and you“re not out with a hundred, you don“t expect to be walking off on the losing side. I have to hold my hands up and take some of the blame for that because I should have got us over the line.

“I think Martin and I had a great partnership, but we were going along at the same sort of pace throughout much of it. Maybe one of us should have kicked on a little earlier than we did.

“Then, when Martin got out we lost momentum, I know I certainly did, and it was pretty tough for those blokes coming in afterwards. Looking back, that“s where we went wrong, We left ourselves too much to do at the end even though Azhar came in and played a great knock, it shouldn“t have got down to the wire in the first place.”

Denly added that the St Lawrence pitch was a touch dry and two-paced for the clash with Hampshire, but he lays no blame on the wicket, adding: “It was a strange one for Canterbury, but we still backed ourselves to chase those runs down.

“The pitch isn“t an excuse for us, we should have won the game and at the half-way stage we were pretty pleased with ourselves for containing them to 230-odd.

“We felt we did a good job in the field and backed the bowlers up well, so it was a quiet dressing room afterwards. We have training on Wednesday so I guess we“ll have a team meeting then to have a chat about things and reflect on where we went wrong.”