A magnificent spell of pace bowling by Ben Aitchison put a dent in Kent’s promotion challenge and took Derbyshire to a dramatic 181 run victory in the Rothesay County Championship match at Derby.

Aitchison was irresistible as he took the first five wickets on the fourth morning at the OurCoop County Ground, finishing with figures of 5 for 44 to condemn Kent to a defeat that leaves them third in Division Two.

To their credit, Kent fought to the end through Chris Benjamin, 32 from 115 balls, and Ekansh Singh, 59 from 86, in a sixth wicket stand of 91 in 29 overs before Grant Stewart and Bertie Foreman displayed more defiance.

The pair faced 169 balls, adding 74, before Martin Andersson pinned Stewart lbw for 65 but Foreman took Kent tantalisingly close to safety only to be pinned lbw by Shoaib Bashir for 38 from 148 balls.

With only two overs left, Brett Randell had Hasan Mahmud caught behind off a short ball to shatter Kent’s hopes of pulling off what would have been a great escape.  

Any prospect of them going so close to batting out the day let alone scoring another 431 runs to win the game disappeared in the space of five overs as Aitchison ran through the visitor’s top order.

Zak Crawley was the first to go when Aitchison moved one away to take the edge and although Matthew Montgomery parried the ball at third slip, Andersson grabbed the rebound at second.

Aitchison then delivered a hammer blow to Kent’s hopes in his next over by removing two of the batsmen capable of playing a long innings.

Ben Compton was drawn into playing at another ball just outside off stump and it took the edge as he tried to withdraw his bat to reduce Kent to 11 for 2.

Compton kicked the ground in frustration at the manner of his dismissal and five balls later, Sam Northeast was also trudging back to the pavilion.

Again, the line from Aitchison was challenging, tempting Northeast to play and a low edge was well taken by Guest diving to his right.

Kent were falling apart and a fourth wicket went in Aitchison’s fifth over of the morning as Tawanda Muyeye flashed a cut at a ball too close to him and was caught by a juggling Montgomery at third slip.

Aitchison was unstoppable and in his next over, removed Kent captain Danile Bell-Drummond who edged to gully as he played loosely.

At 38 for 5, it was a question of how long Kent could last and how damaging this could be to their hopes of claiming the second promotion place.

The removal of Aitchison from the attack with the outstanding figures of 8-1-26-5 provided some respite and Benjamin and Singh dug in to add 53 from 103 balls to take Kent to 91 for 5 at lunch.

But they still had a long road in front of them, and the pair were making steady progress along it until a change of bowling broke the stand.

Randell got one to lift on Singh and the ball looped to backward square leg where Andersson dived forward to take the catch.

Benjamin’s obdurate innings ended six overs later when he edged Randell into his stumps, but Stewart and Foreman gave Kent hope by batting well into the final session.

They stood firm for another 28 overs, mainly against spin, until Andersson struck only for Foreman and the tail to keep fighting but in the end, it was so near, yet so far. 

Speaking after the defeat, Kent head coach Adam Hollioake said: “Surprisingly I’m proud. We had that horrible start to the season where basically we were saved by the rain in the first two games, lost by an innings in our third and then all this while we’ve been unbeaten and we can fight like that to the end, for the boys to get so close I thought we were going to save the draw but it wasn’t to be.

“I’m just really proud of the effort. That might have been something that was missing in past years but even our biggest critic would have to respect the fight that we showed, taking it to the death like that.”

“I’ve just given a debrief to the team and said that last year we would probably have lost somewhere between lunch and tea but that changing room was real quiet at the end and they were disappointed to have lost but you’ve got to be proud of your character, your determination and your fight sometimes.”

On Bertie Foreman he said: “I’ve been singing his praises all year and wanting to get him in. I knew what he could do with the ball, he picked up four wickets on a wicket where not many other spinners particularly did well on, so I thought that was a great effort and then pretty much a hundred runs in the game. He’s a wonderful talent and we are really pleased with the progress he’s made.”