Milestones and missed chances on day one at Canterbury
Tuesday 24th September 2013
Ashwell Prince hit an unbeaten 134 on a day of missed chances and milestones in Canterbury as Lancashire reached a respectable 269 for eight in their end-of-season LV= County Championship Division Two clash with Kent. The South African left-hander put barely a foot wrong and posted the 35th century of his illustrious career to cement an otherwise faltering first innings by the newly-crowned champions.
Kent gave a surprise first-class debut to 19-year-old rookie pace bowler Matt Hunn, who was thrown in at the deep end to take the new ball after signing on the eve of the match.
Hunn, a right-arm seamer with a handful of appearances for Kent and Essex second teams and Suffolk, replaced Shreck, who is Kent's leading championship wicket-taker with 33 scalps.
Both Kent and Hunn made a sound start once the fog cleared allowing play to start at 10.45am and, having won the toss, the hosts made their first breakthrough with the second ball of the match.
Mark Davies found a perfect length to draw Paul Horton (0) forward and have the right-hander caught low at second slip by Darren Stevens.
Hunn sent down three maidens but was seen off by Prince, who notched his 15,000th run in first-class cricket early in his stay.
Davies gave way to Adam Ball at the Nackington Road End and he struck with his ninth delivery, bowling Luis Reece (14).
However, Kent slip fielder Stevens grassed two tough chances just before lunch, downing Karl Brown on four against Ball and then 17 off the bowling of James Tredwell via a deflection off the keeper's knee.
Prince and Brown added 71 in 27.1 overs either side of lunch until Stevens had Brown (42), pushing in defence at an away-swinger, caught behind by Kent's understudy wicketkeeper Sam Billings.
Prince notched his eighth fifty of the season from 129 balls and, on reaching 73, posted 1,000 runs for the championship summer.
Kent botched a third chance when Luke Procter edged a drive against Stevens but Sam Northeast was unable to snap up the chance.
Procter failed to capitalise, however, and soon perished for eight to a diving catch at slip by Stevens after the left-hander had toe-ended an attempted sweep against Tredwell.
Andrea Agathangelou (13) followed just before tea when he shouldered arms to Ball then, soon after the resumption, Stevens took another athletic slip catch to account for Tom Smith (10) and give Tredwell his 350th first-class wicket.
After almost five hours at the crease Prince reached his second hundred of the summer from 215 balls, with 14 fours. It was his sixth ton for the Red Rose county.
The second new ball accounted for Alex Davies (16), caught at slip when pushing defensively at one from namesake Mark Davies, then Hunn bagged his maiden championship wicket by having Oliver Newby (one) caught driving on the up at extra cover.
Kent downed a fifth chance late in the day when Billings parried a diving chance off the edge of Stephen Parry's bat to deny Hunn a second scalp.