Derbyshire have routed Kent by an innings and 229 runs in their final Rothesay County Championship match of the season at Canterbury.

Luis Reece, who’d scored 211 in Derbyshire’s only innings, took five for 63, while Ben Aitchison and Zak Chappell both took two wickets apiece as the visitors sealed third place in Division Two.

Ben Compton was Kent’s top scorer with 65 but the home side already knew they’d finish bottom, regardless of the outcome.

Kent began day four on 135 for five in their second innings, 291 behind, and their tissue-paper thin hopes of avoiding defeat faded when they lost Harry Finch in the fourth over of the morning, lbw to Aitchison for 14.

Aitchison, whose sister Holly is in the England squad for today’s Rugby World Cup final with Canada, then got the key wicket of Compton, again lbw and although Corey Flintoff hung around for 35 balls, he eventually pulled Chappell straight to Aneurin Donald at square leg and was caught for 11.

Grant Stewart gave a sparse crowd some entertainment, hooking Chappell for six, but the bowler than had Matt Parkinson caught by Donald at short leg for a six-ball duck.

The visitors concluded a win that had looked inevitable for the best part of three days when Michael Cohen flashed at Reece and was caught by a diving Brooke Guest, also without scoring.

The wicket meant Reece became only the 51st person, world-wide, to score a double-century and take five wickets in a first-class match.

** Stat again courtesy of David Griffin @dgriffinpix

Derbyshire’s Micky Arthur said: “I thought we were superb in our disciplines. The mindset shift for us has been astronomical in terms of wanting to win and winning games and setting up games to win, playing a lot more of a brand of more positive cricket which as a captain and coach we’ve driven, and the boys have responded unbelievably well to that.

“So I couldn’t be more proud in that performance because that sort of sums us up as a team and shows where we can get to. Team-wise, I thought the fielding was outstanding. It’s a strange thing to pick on, but the fielding was outstanding on the back of that huge first innings total.

“When you have a look at the way the guys go about their business out on the ground and the fielding and the intensity and the energy, it tells you where we’re at as a team and I couldn’t be more proud of that because it shows that guys have really bought into it. You chase every ball down, you attempt every catch and I think we showed that in this game in heaps.”

(On Luis Reece) “It’s almost ridiculous. It’s been a phenomenal season for Luis and he’s mostly done that on one leg as well. He goes in for an operation in the next couple of days to clear out his ankle.It’s a phenomenal, phenomenal performance and it just shows again the determination, the drive of him and everybody within our squad to get better. Training has been an absolute pleasure. Lewis has epitomised that by guys coming down to train with one purpose and one purpose only in mind and that’s to get better.

“Wayne Madsen led the team unbelievably well through this year as well. I’ve been very proud of the way he’s led but you can never fault him for that. He keeps churning (performances) out in all forms and he’s still fit, he still catches well in the slips.

(On Jack Morley) “He’s got a high ceiling, a very, very high ceiling. His best ball is as good as I’ve ever seen.His best ball is as good as any left off spinner I’ve seen, including the boys I’ve seen in the sub-continent. What we need from him is consistency. He’s a tinkerman, he tinkers with his action all the time.

“I need him to stop doing that and just be consistent because when you’re consistent you get rid of people. So when he’s in the heat of battle and it just doesn’t feel well, he’s got some reference points to go back to which I didn’t think he had midway through the season. So we’ve worked really hard with him.”

“We’ve got (Matt) Montgomery and we’ll have a very good overseas fast bowler joining us. That strengthens us again and we’re going to be a very, very good side. We keep the mindset of trying to get out there and win every game and who knows where we could end up.

(Any regrets?) “I look at two results in particular. We ended up six points behind Glamorgan and we needed 66 of 60 balls in that fourth innings run chase at Cardiff, that was a 16-point swing in the season for us. Then we had the same at Bristol where we had the game won in the fourth innings chase and just didn’t manage to get over the line so we ended up drawing both those games. Those are the two disappointments because if we had got over the line in one of them, we’d be about talking about Division One next year.

“But you can take those experiences and these players can take those experiences presumably and think we’re not doing that again. It’s part of your growth as a team.I might add that there were a couple of games where I think in Lancashire at Old Trafford where we were battling it out to save the game and ended up saving it.”

Kent’s Adam Hollioake said: “You know, we didn’t bowl well enough. It was a good wicket. We didn’t bowl well enough. We didn’t build any pressure throughout and then with the bat, on what’s a very good wicket, we just haven’t capitalised and put on big partnerships, which is kind of what we’ve done all year really.

(Where did the season go wrong?) “Well, we did get off to a good start, (but) no doubt injuries haven’t helped. Keith Dudgeon went down after one game and I think the injuries really compounded after three games. We’d won two and drawn one, but during that period Nathan Gilchrist got a concussion, Jas Singh did his ankle, and Keith Dudgeon obviously we mentioned already. That then put a strain on our fast bowling attack and we were sort of constantly overloading our bowlers.

“I know that’s unlucky, but we’re a professional cricket team and we’ve got to deal with that. We haven’t done that very well and we’re just going to have to be better, me included as a coach, I’m not just pointing the finger at the players. 

“This is definitely not good enough. We’ve just had a meeting there with the boys and we’ve drawn a line in the sand. We’re going to try and put it right. I mean, we’ve been trying to put it right all year, but just obviously haven’t been doing a very good job of it, so now’s the opportunity to sit down, have a good look in the mirror, work out how we put it right, because it’s clearly not good enough.

(Was it harder than he anticipated?) “That’s a good question. It’s been hard, but without wanting to sound like I’m being a spin doctor, there’s been seedlings of things to be happy about probably from end of June until now.

“There was a period back in mid, sort of end of May and through June where I was wondering what I’d signed myself up for, but, you know, the young players, I think that gives me some hope. And there’s been times when we’ve played some good cricket, albeit not often enough.

“Our performance in the T20, I thought, was pretty good without overseas players a lot of the time, so our white ball has been okay, but our red ball just hasn’t been good enough. You can be the best spin doctor in the world and I defy them to stand up here and find anything other than Ben Compton’s batting and maybe Grant Stewart’s batting to be excited about throughout the four-day game.

“I mean, we chucked in a bit of Tawanda and a bit of Deebs (Daniel Bell-Drummond) in there at times, but there’s not much to be excited about, to be honest, other than the young players coming through there. 

“Ben’s been amazing and I think the good thing about it is he’s a real-life example for the young players to look at and show this is how you go about the game.

“He’s professional, he’s low-maintenance, he just gets on with his training and there’s not a lot of Hollywood about him, but he just gets on and does his job and he’s tough. He deserves all that credit and accolades coming his way because he’s had a fantastic year.”

Picture supplied by Mark Doig.