Kent secure 3rd win in a row v Derbyshire
Kent continued their perfect start to the Specsavers County Championship season with a 169-run win against Derbyshire at The Spitfire Ground.
On-loan seamer James Harris took four wickets after a gritty 90-run stand by Adam Rouse (95*) and Darren Stevens (90) set the visitors a daunting chase of 409.
Former Surrey keeper Gary Wilson’s 97 was the only resistance as the winless Midlanders were dismissed for the second time in three days.
After the visitors lost five second innings wickets inside 25 overs Wilson steadied the ship before Darren Stevens (3/63), Harris (4/56) and Matt Coles (2/57) ended the contest.
Rouse finished unbeaten on a career best 95 when last man James Tredwell chipped a catch to mid-on to give Wayne Madsen his sole wicket of the game.
Resuming on their overnight score from day two of 142 for seven, Kent’s eighth-wicket partners Adam Rouse and Darren Stevens continued to bat positively in extending their side’s lead beyond 300.
Having reached his season’s best score, Stevens was only ten short of a century from only 86 balls faced when he fell to the first delivery of the day from leg-spinner Jeevan Mendis.
Pushing down the line of off and expecting turn, Stevens played outside the line of a top-spinner and departed lbw having added 90 in tandem with Rouse. It was the eighth time in first-class cricket that Stevens has departed in the nervous 90s.
The 24-year-old keeper reached his second first class 50 from 65 balls and with 11 fours.
After helping to add 83 in 15.1 overs for the ninth wicket, James Harris (32) became Kent’s second casualty of the day, clipping a low catch to Luis Reece at mid-wicket off the bowling of Will Davis, but, by then, the hosts were already 384 ahead.
They lost skipper Billy Godleman in only the fourth over of the reply. The left-hander’s airy drive against in-form seamer Darren Stevens flew off a thick edge and into the hands of James Tredwell at second slip.
Then, with 21 on the board Shiv Thakor, driving with an open bat face to one from Wayne Parnell, clipped a catch to Joe Denly in the gully to depart for six.
After receiving treatment for a blow on the knee, Luis Reece fended at the next delivery from James Harris to edge to slip then Wayne Madsen, after an impudent, steered six over third man, departed leg before to a Matt Coles off-cutter.
Harris, the loanee seamer from Middlesex, then bagged another by plucking out Darren Smit’s leg stump via an inside edge as the right-hander aimed an ambitious drive.
Stevens struck again after tea as Alex Hughes nicked behind to Rouse before the same combination accounted for Sri Lankan international Jeevan Mendis.
Next to fall was Milnes with Rouse claiming his fifth catch of the match off the bowling off Harris from the Nackington Road end.
The Welshman grabbed a fourth scalp when Wilson fell three short of a century, pinned LBW.
Coles secured the win when Will Davis top-edged to the tumbling Sam Northeast to earn 21 points and secure second spot in Division Two.
Next up is the Royal London One-Day Cup, with eight 50-over matches scheduled over 20 days starting with the visit of Hampshire to The Spitfire Ground on Thursday (27 April, 11am).