Hampshire’s hopes of qualifying for the knock-out stages of the Royal London Cup are still alive after they coasted to a six-wicket win over Kent Spitfires at Beckenham. 

Ian Holland ripped out Kent’s top order with four for 12 as the hosts failed to bat out their overs, despite a rain-reduction to 24 per side. Scott Currie took two for four as the Spitfires were all out for 105. 

The Duckworth Lewis Method pushed the target up to just 107 and Hampshire chased it down with relative ease, finishing on 107 for four, Tom Alsop the top scorer with 37 and Holland hitting an unbeaten 30. 

Kent have now been eliminated, regardless of the outcome of Thursday’s final scheduled match with Gloucestershire at Beckenham, a fixture in doubt due to the Covid outbreak that saw today’s match between Gloucestershire and Middlesex cancelled. 

The prospects of play looked remote as steady rain fell throughout the morning, but conditions improved and play started at 2.30pm, with the match initially reduced to 27 overs per side.  

Kent’s openers actually made a bright start after being asked to bat, but after moving to 42 without loss, Tawanda Muyeye was bowled by John Turner for 24. 

Holland then instigated a collapse when he claimed two wickets in the twelfth over. Ollie Robinson was caught by James Fuller at deep square leg for 27 and Jack Leaning was subsequently caught and bowled for 11. In Holland’s next over, Harry Finch chipped him to Nick Gubbins and was out for nought. 

Kent had reached 70 for four before a shower sent the players sprinting to the pavilion, trimming the match by a further three overs per side, and if anything their batting got worse when play resumed. Darren Stevens made just eight when Holland had him caught by Felix Organ and Grant Stewart was run out for four, by a direct hit from Tom Scriven, chasing a single that could best be described as optimistic. 

Joe Gordon made nine on his List A debut before he holed out to Scriven and was caught by Organ and Currie then bowled Harry Podmore for eight before getting Hamid Qadri lbw for five.  

Kyle Abbott wrapped up the innings when Matt Quinn was caught by Tom Prest and Hampshire made short work of the chase. 

The Spitfires’ hopes flickered when Quinn took two quick wickets, strangling Prest down the leg side where he was caught behind for two and then bowling Gubbins, also for two, to reduce the visitors to 23 for two, but Hampshire put on 40 for the next wicket before Alsop chopped Podmore to Finch, who took a sharp catch at point. 

By the time Joe Weatherley was caught by Muyeye off Podmore for 25 Gloucestershire needed just another 15 for victory with six wickets in hand and Fuller smacked Podmore for six to clinch the win with 34 balls to spare. 

Hampshire’s Ian Holland said: “It’s been the story of most of our campaigns this year, leaving it late. Hopefully we can go up to Durham and put in a performance. I haven’t looked at the exact table, we’ll probably need a few things to go our way, but we’re still well and truly alive, which is great. 

“We were happy with that total, we were able to take a consistent amount of wickets throughout the innings and we felt that was a very gettable score on a pretty small outfield. The wicket was a little bit slow at times but on this outfield we felt pretty confident chasing it. It was always going to be one good partnership in theory, or a couple of half-partnerships and that ended up being the case.(On his career-best List A figures)

“It’s nice, it was one of those days when they just went to hand. When they mishit them it went to the fielders. I’m just happy to contribute and most importantly we put in a really good performance with the ball.”

Kent’s Simon Cook said: “Sometimes you have to have a hard lesson. It does hurt, but you come through that and it ultimately makes you a better cricketer going forwards because you don’t want to feel that way.

“It was disappointing. Rain-affected games are always pretty tough to deal with and losing the toss obviously doesn’t help, but having said that we didn’t put enough runs on the board to put any pressure on Hampshire at all, so we only have ourselves to blame in that regard. 

“We were unlucky not to come away from Sussex with a win, we kind of got done by Duckworth Lewis in that game. The Middlesex game showed that we had got some momentum going forward. Nathan bowled brilliantly and carried on today on a placid pitch. He still looked very attacking, but it’s disappointing that we haven’t managed to lead on from the 300 we scored here against Durham and the 320 which we got in the second game.

“Both of those games were influenced by George (Munsey) and (Harry) Finch having decent partnerships batting and we’ve not been able replicate that.”