Kent v Hampshire: Visitors edge win on penultimate ball
Friday 12th June 2015
Sam Northeast's fourth NatWest T20 Blast half-century of the season was overshadowed by James Vince's 99 not out as Hampshire beat Kent Spitfires with only a ball to spare at The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence.
In pursuit of 184 in a game reduced to 18 overs per side by rain, the tall England Lions right-hander clattered a season’s competition best from 57 balls to see Hampshire home at a misty Canterbury.
The visitors had made a poor start to their reply when Michael Carberry (3) fenced at the fourth ball of the reply from Matt Coles to edge to Spitfires’ keeper Ryan Davies making his T20 debut behind the stumps.
Davies was in the action again in Coles’s next over, tumbling to his right to take a bottom-edged catch that dismissed Jimmy Adams for 16 as the visitors reached 46 for two after their powerplay.
Hampshire had 75 on the scoreboard when Owais Shah (18) walked across his stumps aiming for the short, mid-wicket boundary only to miss out and go lbw to Darren Stevens.
Kent’s attack struggled in the middle overs as Hampshire’s Sean Ervine and Vince raised their side’s hundred after 10.2 overs to maintain the asking rate.
Vince reached a 36-ball 50 and celebrated by clubbing his third six of the night over mid-wicket off James Tredwell, but Ervine’s stay ended for 36 when he clipped Adam Ball to long off to conclude a stand that added 58 in 5.1 overs.
Vince hit a fourth six off Ball that endangered the staff in a burger bar as Hampshire edged home for a fourth win in six starts.
Batting first after winning their fourth successive T20 toss, Kent’s Joe Denly opened his boundary account with an on-drive to the ropes against Fidel Edwards, who responded next ball with a yorker that pegged back Denly’s leg stump and sent the right-hander packing for six.
Sam Northeast, the competition’s leading run-scorer, found his range with consecutive fours off left-arm spinner Danny Briggs to take Kent to 47 for one after their shortened, five-over powerplay but, without addition to the score, Daniel Bell-Drummond (19) missed a leg-side clip to be bowled by Yasir Arafat’s first ball of the night.
Fabian Cowdrey moved to 13 with a rasping cover drive for four against Danny Briggs but, he missed an attempted cut to the left-arm spinner’s next ball to be bowled and leave Spitfires on 77 for three at the mid-point of their innings.
Northeast launched six over extra cover on his way to a 29-ball half-century – his fourth time past 50 in seven T20 starts this season – but, four balls later, he holed out to long on to give Edwards a second scalp.
Alex Blake and Stevens upped the tempo with a brace of sixes, the second of which took Stevens to 23 – his highest score in this season’s Blast event – but two runs later Stevens skied to long-off against Arafat to make it 130 for five.
Blake, who hit an unbeaten 71 off 30 balls in last month’s reverse fixture at the Ageas Bowl, took 21 off Arafat’s final over and a further two boundaries against Edwards took him to an unbeaten 49 from 25 balls and earn the FItzgerald Jewellers Man of the Match award.