It was a day to forget for the batters on both sides of Kent’s Rothesay County Championship with Lancashire at Canterbury, with 17 wickets falling.

Promotion hopefuls Kent skittled Lancashire for 161, with Khaled Ahmed taking five for 42 and Matt Milnes four for 28, but the visitors’ opening stand of 81 turned into by the far the biggest partnership of the match.

Michael Jones was their top scorer with 44 and Keaton Jennings made 30, but they suffered a catastrophic afternoon session, losing all ten wickets for 88 runs.

Kent then suffered an almost equally cataclysmic evening, lurching to 151 for seven at stumps: James Anderson then took three for 25, but Zak Crawley’s unbeaten 68 got them close to parity.

Kent put Lancashire in, but initially struggled to break through. Jennings edged Matt Milnes when he was on three, but Benjamin, standing behind the stumps, couldn’t react in time.

The track was so close to the Old Dover Road side of the ground that a higher than usual number of sixes were expected and Jones hit the first, bludgeoning Keith Dudgeon over midwicket.

It was 73 without loss at lunch, but Lancashire then lost four wickets for one run. Jennings gave his wicket away, hitting Khaled Ahmed straight to Dudgeon at backward point for 30 and in the next over Jones was lbw to Milnes, before Marcus Harris was caught behind for a second ball duck.

Rocky Flintoff was lucky not to get a first-baller to Milnes, but he was out lbw to Khaled in the next over anyway.

Josh Bohannon edged Matt Quinn behind for 20 and Matty Hurst went off shaking his head after he nicked Khaled to Tawanda Muyeye for 37, the umpires conferring for several seconds before giving him out.

Arav Shetty was put down by Zak Crawley when he edged Khaled to first, but he’d only made seven when Milnes had him caught behind.

Tom Bailey went for six, slashing Milnes to Muyeye at third, and Khaled bowled Mitch Stanley middle stump for a second ball duck.

Khaled concluded the innings when he got James Anderson caught by Sam Northeast at second with the next ball, leaving George Balderson not out on five.

The Kent innings was nearly as chaotic. Anderson got Ben Compton early, caught behind for six. Northeast fell in his next over, caught by Jennings at second, but Anderson dropped Muyeye off Tom Bailey in the next over.

Muyeye hit Anderson for three consecutive fours, only to be lbw to his next ball.

Stanley had Daniel Bell-Drummond caught for nine by Jennings at second slip and Bailey bowled Benjamin off stump for 15.

Bertie Foreman lasted 16 balls for one before he hit Bailey to Jones at fourth slip and Dudgeon got a third ball duck, lbw in the same over, with Kent still 44 in arrears.

Crawley, however, clipped a single off Bailey to score the only half-century of the match so far and Milnes hung around to make eight not out when bad light stopped play with two scheduled overs remaining.

Kent’s Matt Milnes said: “It’s a very entertaining game, it’s happened fast, hasn’t it? I think it’s hard to digest straight away really. Obviously, the first session we felt like it didn’t really do a huge amount, it may have nipped a touch from a bit wider, but it seemed really slow and really low.”

“I thought at one stage we were probably in for the long haul a little bit. I don’t think we bowled badly, I think we actually bowled quite nicely. We held the rate, I think they probably went at two and overs, something like that.”

“It just quickened up and I think we put the ball in the right areas that spell after lunch and put some pressure on their middle order and thankfully managed to bowl them out towards the end of that session. Then, obviously, we knew we were probably going to have to scrap it out a bit tonight.”

“There was enough happening for the bowlers and we obviously got a good attack as well. So, we knew it was going to be a tricky period for us to bat. And then, the way Zak batted was incredible, really. I thought, on that pitch and in the situation, that was worth 160 rather than 60 or whatever it is. So, yeah, it was a serious knock.”

“It was obviously, a big blow for us losing Hasan (Mahmud). He’s obviously a high-class bowler. But, for Khaled to step into his shoes, he has really big shoes to fill, but to step into them and do the job today, I thought he bowled really nicely.”

(On bowling up the hill and taking wickets) “I’m not sure you need to say that too loudly, it’s not your favourite. I think it’s harder work, it’s harder on the body, anyway. To be fair, I do think, it’s weird, you can attack the crease a bit more this end and I think I rely on that as a bowler quite a lot. But, yeah, I felt a really good rhythm after lunch up the hill.”

Lancashire’s Michael Jones said: “I think that Keats and I had a decent partnership at the top to get us into a solid position at lunch, but ultimately the wicket was probably slow to start with, so it meant that if we did nick one or whatever, it generally went down.”

“It was probably tough to score, but arguably it got tougher to bat on as the day went on because it started carrying more. The sideways movement that was there was a little bit faster, so I think it was arguably a little bit tougher. Even though we would have bowled if we won the toss, I think it was actually a decent toss to lose would be the way things have played out. If you said to me (at lunch) there would have been 17 wickets at that stage, I would have been a little bit surprised.”

“I don’t know what we were, maybe 80 or something for none. I think obviously we would have liked a few more runs.”

“We could have scrapped and maybe got 250 there and taken a lead of 50-plus into the second innings. It would have given us a real hand-up in the game, but obviously that’s not the case. Now we probably just need to really scrap in the morning, keep it down to a minimum, and see what we can get in the second innings and bowl them out.”