Kent v Northants: Visitors dominate day one despite Denly 50
Tuesday 4th August 2015
James Tredwell and Matt Hunn got the only breakthroughs as Northants passed Kent’s first-innings total of 156 on day one of the LV= County Championship during the 164th Canterbury Week.
Joe Denly’s 41st first-class 50, a gritty knock of 49 from Calum Haggett and 34 from Darren Stevens provided the main resistance for Kent after falling to 41-4 at The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence.
Northants ended day one on 172-2 at Canterbury at 7.45pm after a 12pm start and slow over rate forced play into the evening.
Kent-born opener Ben Duckett’s unbeaten 94 was the bedrock of the reply, putting on 105 for the first wicket with David Murphy (42).
Earlier, Kent captain Sam Northeast won the toss and opted to bat but was out first ball after openers Daniel Bell-Drummond and Rob Key were lost with only 40 runs on the board.
The arrival of Darren Stevens steadied the ship as he and Denly added 42 runs for the fifth wicket before Denly fell shortly after reaching 50.
Sam Billings was soon trapped LBW before Haggett hit ten boundaries and left well before being the last man to fall on 49, agonisingly short of his third half-century of the summer.