Kentish Express Ashford & District
Bell-Drummond key again
Daniel Bell-Drummond’s rich vein of form continued as he helped Kent Spitfires demolish Somerset in the Royal London One-Day Cup on Tuesday.
His 68 from 51 balls paved the way for Kent to post 231 in a rain-hit 30-oversa-side clash at Canterbury in which the hosts blitzed the visitors in reply for just 136 with nearly six overs to spare.
Bell-Drummond has taken to the middle 18 times this season in the three formats and this was his ninth half-century and took him to 942 runs – not including his double century in the First Class warm-up against Loughborough.
He said: “It’s going for me at the moment. I’m just trying to keep it going.”
Kent bounced back from their three-wicket loss to Glamorgan two days earlier to record their second win of the South Group ahead of yesterday’s (Wednesday) trip to Essex.
Bell-Drummond and skipper Sam Northeast (64 from 49 balls), who again lost the toss, plus a late cameo of 36 from 23 balls by Alex Blake guided the Spitfires to 231-6.
Some stifling bowling and excellent fielding then saw the visitors reduced to 35-3 and 64-6 with Darren Stevens claiming a two-wicket maiden, the recalled Fabian Cowdrey taking 2-38 and Ivan Thomas a career-best 3-31 as Somerset were eventually dismissed 95 runs short.
Bell-Drummond said: “We’ve been a bit hit and miss this year.
“We got off to a brilliant start in both formats but we have stumbled a little bit so it was good to get back to winning ways, especially batting first.
“We struggled defending against Glamorgan even though we posted a very good score so it was imperative that we won here.
“We did really well with the ball.
“Looking back on it I’d say 230 was a very good score but at the halfway point we weren’t convinced.”
‘We have stumbled a little so it was good to get back to winning ways’