In the first of Kent’s two days of home list A cricket away from Canterbury, they hosted Nottinghamshire in the Metro One Day Cup at Beckenham and enjoyed an exciting final over victory.

Having won the toss, the visitors elected to bat first hoping to take advantage of Kent resting both of their first choice opening bowlers, Keith Dudgeon and Matt Milnes.

As a result Grant Stewart and Matt Quinn took the new balls (one at each end in this competition). Freddie McCann was dropped off Quinn in just his second over but it did not prove too costly as the quick bowler got his man soon after.

Ben Martindale rarely looked troubled, though, and took control. Tayyab Tahir went cheaply, caught and bowled in Ekansh Singh’s second over. and captain Haseeb Hameed looked in good touch before dragging Matt Parkinson straight to Ben Dawkins at midwicket for 23.

Kyle Verreynne joined Martindale, who had already completed 50 from 49 balls and they put on 91 before the opener holed out off Joey Evison having just brought up his century from 107 deliveries. Verreynne brought up his own half century from 45 balls before he was caught in the deep off the bowling of Parkinson for 71.

Well placed at 217 for 4 with ten overs remaining, the Outlaws looked to be on their way to well over three hundred. Only Lyndon James, who scored 43, resisted the Kent bowlers excellent spells in the death overs to keep the total down to 293 for 9. Singh ended with 4 for 40, Parkinson 2 for 62 (he bowled better than those figures suggest), Evison 1 for 46, Stewart 1 for 48 and Quinn 1 for 61. Jaydn Denly was the unlucky bowler who didn’t take a wicket.

In their response, Kent lost Dawkins early on but captain Daniel Bell-Drummond was in belligerent form before falling for 44. Sam Northeast was then joined by Harry Finch and they batted carefully to preserve their wickets while chipping away at the target. At the midway point, the Kent score was almost identical to their opposition at the same point.

After another three overs of accumulation, Northeast and Finch were sent a message and they upped the run rate immediately. Until that point, they had shown spinner Farhan Ahmed a lot of respect but they smashed his next over for fourteen and he was withdrawn from the attack immediately.

They continued until their 115 partnership was ended when Northeast was well caught by Hameed at midwicket for 78 and Joey Benjamin strode to the middle to join Finch. A 66 run partnership ended when Finch was caught on the boundary for 88 with thirty-eight runs still required from five overs.

Singh was unable to replicate his heroics from Kent’s previous game when he hit 40 not out from 20 balls and didn’t last long but Stewart came in and he and Benjamin struck nineteen off the penultimate over before finishing it with four balls remaining. Benjamin ended unbeaten on 55 from 34 balls, and Stewart on 8 from 5. 

Kent’s Chris Benjamin said: “It was brilliant. There was quite a bit of work to do at the end, but I thought we set it up beautifully with the bat and the bowlers did brilliantly to restrict them to under 300 it looked like they were going to get 320 at a period.

“They had a couple of good partnerships and then we brought it back at the end so we’re very chuffed to finish it off.

“I thought they were brilliantly placed, but I’m sure probably in hindsight they would feel they could have kicked on a little bit earlier. Ultimately they kept losing wickets and that’s always the tough thing in 50-over cricket. When you keep losing wickets, to still score eights, nines, is very difficult, so the bowlers do a great job.

“Parky (Matt Parkinson) always gets a bit frustrated this evening, he does all the hard work, but it was a great day for Ekansh again. Deebs (Daniel Bell-Drummond) got us off to a great start and we 50-odd after the Powerplay, so that set us up very well. Then Sam and Finchie got into their work, had a fantastic partnership and then just after drinks they really sort of kicked on.”

Notts’ Ben Martindale said: “Obviously it feels really good to create a performance like that, but at the end of the day you want to walk away with a win. I mean, I’ll take some comfort in that performance, but I think as a group we’re obviously quite disappointed.

(On his maiden century)

“It makes all the work that you put in worth it when you see that. And when you come around next week or whenever our next game is, hopefully I’ll be able to put a similar performance in. I think the tempo was the main side of things. It’s helpful back with guys like Haseeb and Verreynne, but in order to try and set it up for the back end, the tempo is the main part of the innings. It felt like we were in a good spot all the way through. Unfortunately, couldn’t battle the way through to the end.

“We wanted to get as close to a 300 as possible. We thought it was a round par, but obviously their lads timed it really well. They batted really well. Yeah, they had some quality in there, so unfortunately we couldn’t quite get over the line, but they played really well in the end.

“It was a bit of cat and mouse, really, wasn’t it? I feel like we were always in it, they were always in it, and then with it being down to the last three, four, five overs, it was really tight and then obviously a couple of overs changed it. We had a couple of good overs and they had a couple of good overs and then unfortunately we didn’t quite have enough.”

Kent travel to The Oval on Wednesday to take on Surrey before returning to Beckenham next Sunday with Leicestershire the visitors. 

Pictures supplied by Keith Gillard.