The Rothesay County Championship match between Division Two leaders Leicestershire and Kent at Canterbury ended in a draw, after the hosts reached 445 for eight on day four, trailing by 24 when bad light stopped play.

Ben Compton hit a career-best 221 and Harry Finch made 54 not out, while Rehan Ahmed three for 134, but the chances of a positive result were effectively neutered on day three, when a mere 9.5 overs were bowled.

Leicestershire remain top of the table, while Kent stay bottom.

Conditions were significantly better on Friday morning but as soon as Kent passed the follow on target of 321 a draw seemed inevitable.

The nightwatch, George Garrett, survived 67 balls spread across days two, three and four but he was the first man out when he edged Logan van Beek to Louis Kimber for 10.

The first shot of Ben Dawkins’ first-class career was a stylish drive that might have gone for four but for the slope, but he was out for seven, inside-edging Ben Green behind.

Compton, 111 not out overnight, reached 150 in the penultimate over of the session when he cut Tom Scriven for four and Kent eased to 307 for four at lunch.

Scriven subsequently had Joey Evison caught behind for 38, but an elegant sweep off Rehan saw Compton to 200. He took a single off Patel to pass his previous highest score of 217 and was finally out when he came down the wicket to Rehan and was stumped.

Rehan then had Matt Parkinson lbw for two and Kent were 429 for eight at tea, after which Finch cover-drove Rishi Patel to bring up his half-century, but play was suspended at 4.40pm and both sides looked as eager as the umpires to shake hands on the draw.

Kent’s Adam Hollioake said: “Unfortunately the rain on the third day put an end to any chance of a result but it was a good wicket and there were some positive signs coming through for us.”

“I love the way Parky bowled. Obviously at lunch on the first day there was a feeling of “here we go again, we could be in the field for another massive score,’ but the way he locked down that end and was wise enough to go around the wicket and make use of those footholes was really good.

“And then I thought with the bat we applied ourselves really well. It would have been easy to sell our wickets cheaply, as we have done a lot this year, but I think Ben Compton was brilliant again, obviously he’s been our best player all year, he’s a shining light for the rest of us to try and aspire to, so to see him bat like that, even though there were times when he appeared to be cruising, he played within himself and made sure he put those runs on the board, so it’s a good lesson for the young guys playing as well.”

“They’re obviously talented kids and they’ll learn a lot hanging around a player of the quality of Ben Compton.”

“For us to win a couple of sessions like that (when he was duelling with Rehan) has been positive and we have three England Under-19 players playing for us, so that gives us something to smile about looking forward to the future. These guys can come in and give us something to look forward to, I think they’re three quality players.”

(On Rehan) Leicestershire’s Alfonso Thomas said: “I don’t think we we’ll be seeing him a lot in the near future, you know I’m amazed that they (England) picked Dawson last week ahead of Rehan. I believe if England had him bowling at Old Trafford they would have come out on the right side of that game.

“I had a conversation with Marcus Trescothick the batting coach after the second game of the season, that was in April going down to Gloucester, and I said to him, are you guys considering having a look at Rehan as a top order batter? Or a batter who can certainly offer you an option with his bowling, which has come on, you know?

“He kind of got caught off guard by my question a little bit and fair enough to Tres, he said to me that they’d probably have to see him over the season and what he looks like.

“Now I believe, I don’t think my number three batter could have done anything more so far this season than to go on and perform as he has with both bat and ball and to make the England selectors take note of him.

“There’s a couple of one-day series, white ball series, there’s a series against Ireland I believe as well, so I’m hoping that he obviously plays for England, because that’s what we’re here for, but at the same I also hope that he can come and be part of a team that hopefully does something special.

“I think we’ve all seen that we’ve got a quality squad and if somebody needs to step up for a game or two I’ve got the staff to be able to do that.”

(On the game) “I thought it was attritional, I thought in terms of the first day, we obviously did well in the first session and then let them in a little bit and got ourselves in a bit of bother, but then Tom Scriven and Josh Hull batted superbly on the morning of day two to get us our full batting bonus points.

“I thought the boys’ efforts were fantastic. I couldn’t fault their efforts on a wicket that was quite timid. If you consider we got 14 points from two and a bit days cricket, I’ll take that bearing in mind that we’re 28 points ahead of second going into the back end of this with three games left.

“We’re definitely setting our stall out, we don’t just want to go up, we want to win Division Two and most of the time this season we’ve played hat type of cricket but there is still a lot of cricket left and as we saw, anybody can beat anybody so we’re not taking anything going into the last round of games.”

Picture supplied by Ian Scammell – Oyster Bay Photo.