Coles has mixed feelings after hat-trick

Matt Coles had mixed feelings as he celebrated a second career hat-trick as Kent Spitfires lost to a Brendon McCullum-inspired Middlesex at Richmond.

Coles grabbed three wickets in consecutive balls of the final over as he took 4/32 as Middlesex posted 179-8 as they won by 16 runs at Richmond.

The Maidstone-born paceman said: “170 was about par. We missed a couple of chances which didn’t help too much so they probably got nine too many.

“Brendon McCullum is one of the best ball strikers in the world and you cannot give him a second chance. It’s not ideal, we didn’t play bad cricket and I don’t think we’re far away from where we need to be.

“I think we’ve bowled quite well so far. We can maybe bowl a bit better in the powerplay overs to restrict the score below 50 and concede fewer boundaries.

“The death overs have gone really well. We dragged it back with late wickets here, against Gloucestershire on Tuesday and at Surrey last Friday. We just need to iron out a few things with the bat.

“We’ve done OK at Sussex in recent years so hopefully we can put things right with bat and ball on Sunday.”