Kentish Express Ashford & District
Northeast: We’re a little bit short
Captain Sam Northeast could not hide his disappointment after the Spitfires suffered a 50-run T20 humbling at Essex Eagles on Friday night. It was a sixth defeat in nine NatWest T20 Blast South Group games and left Kent secondbottom of a group they topped last season. The visitors were undone by an unbroken 131-run stand between Ravi Bopara and Ashar Zaidi which took up the final 10.2 overs and propelled the hosts from 73-3 to set Kent an imposing victory target of 205. Northeast admitted: “The demons of how we have been playing in the past came back to haunt us. The right and lefthand combination did for us. Things are not going well for us at the moment. “We conceded too many runs at the death. That is normally something we are good at, but it hasn’t happened. “I thought we could get it at the start, but people were getting out at the wrong time. “The number of times you chase down 200 is pretty rare. You’d like to be chasing a little less than that. It was a seriously short boundary, but I think we should have done better. We’re a little bit short in certain areas. “If we perform like we did (in Thursday night’s win over Sussex) then we can go through to the knockout stages. There is a lot of cricket still to be played.” Bopara continued his fine form against Kent as he hammered six sixes in an unbeaten 81 to lead Essex to their third successive T20 victory. Zaidi finished unbeaten on 54 off 33 balls with five fours and three sixes. The Kent reply got off to an inauspicious start when Joe Denly departed for a first-ball duck when he was beaten by rookie Paul Walter. But Kent were soon hitting sixes for fun themselves, reaching 49 off the first five overs. But from the first ball of the next over, Northeast swished at Graham Napier and was caught behind. He then had Tom Latham caught by Ryder backward of square. Sam Billings did not last much longer, run out by a direct hit from Ryder. Darren Stevens also fell to another direct-hit run out as Bopara fielded off his own bowling before Alex Blake was caught by ten Doeschate at longon for a 31-ball 37. Kagiso Rabada went second ball, Fabian Cowdrey was next to go and James Tredwell became Walter’s third victim as Kent closed on 154-9.