Kent’s promotion hopes were dented by another dominant Derbyshire performance on the third day of the Rothesay County Championship match at the OurCoop County Ground.

With the race for second place in Division Two getting closer following Northamptonshire’s win at Worcester, Kent were set an improbable target of 434 after Derbyshire declared on 352 for 8.

Martin Andersson added 50 to his first innings hundred, Brooke Guest made an unbeaten 75 and Luis Reece 53 with Bangladesh fast bowler Hasan Mahmud taking 3 for 32.

Kent faced only nine balls of spin, reaching 3 for 0,  before bad light followed by rain ended play with their realistic objective now to bat for a draw on the final day. 

They had gone into the third morning with a lot of ground to make up after Derbyshire dominated day two.

With the hosts already 181 runs ahead, Kent’s only chance of putting themselves in a position to win the game was by taking early wickets so when Mahmud delivered two in the first seven overs, they sensed an opening.

Mahmud moved one just enough to have Matthew Montgomery caught behind and then Wayne Madsen’s lean run continued when he cut a ball straight to point.

At that stage, Derbyshire’s lead was still below 200 but once again, Andersson tilted the contest back in the home side’s favour.

This has been a standout season for the all-rounder who has now scored 800 runs in the championship at an average of just under 45 and with two rounds of matches to go, there is a good chance he will reach the milestone of a thousand.

After Harry Came was caught at short leg off Bertie Foreman, Andersson drove the off spinner against the media centre for six, and Derbyshire’s lead was 281 when he was lbw to an Ekansh Singh inswinger on the stroke of lunch.

Kent’s hopes of building on that faded as Reece and Brooke Guest stretched Derbyshire’s lead past 350 despite the former taking a blow on the back of the helmet from Mahmud.

Reece was fine to continue which he demonstrated by lifting Foreman over long-on for six on his way to a half-century which took him past 6,000 first-class runs, the 50th Derbyshire player to reach the milestone.

Guest completed his 50 as Derbyshire batted on after tea, adding another 66 runs in 12 overs before the players went off for bad light, at which point the declaration came.

After a short break, the umpires decided Kent could begin their pursuit of a distant target with Derbyshire using their spinners in gloomy conditions with the floodlights on.

England’s Shoaib Bashir opened but three balls into the second over from Jack Morley, the players went off again for the light, quickly followed by rain, with play called off at shortly after 5pm.

Kent will need another 431 runs for what would be a remarkable victory on a pitch offering spin and variable bounce although their best chance of regaining second place would appear to be to try and survive 96 overs.

Speaking after the days play Kent captain Daniel Bell-Drummond said: “We’ve just got to get through that first session and take it from there. Obviously 430 is a heck of a long way away and with how the pitch has been playing in periods of this game we’ve just got to make sure that we’re on it and there’s a clear objective to get away unscathed.

“Anything is possible, but they bowled very well first innings so we’ve got to see off their threats and adjust accordingly because it wasn’t easy for us but hopefully the pitch will have calmed down and we can get through tomorrow unscathed.

“But even if the pitch hasn’t calmed down, we’ve got a job to do and that’s to get through tomorrow. They’ve got two spinners so there will be threats in different places, but we back our batting line up and Plan A is to get through the day.

“We are in a very good position in the table and with that comes pressure so there’s no doubt there’s a lot of things riding on it but we’re ready for that and as I say we’ve got a good batting line up and we should hopefully be able to deal with what’s to come tomorrow.”