Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Kent searching for early form
Kent cricket
Sam Northeast admitted Kent need to rediscover their earlyseason form to stand any chance of promotion to the top flight of the Specsavers County Championship.
Kent started the first of three successive away games against Durham at Chesterle-street yesterday (Tuesday) and follow that with trips to play Gloucestershire at Bristol next Tuesday and Derbyshire in Chesterfield.
They return to Canterbury for their final game against Glamorgan on September 25.
Northeast claimed: “We try to win every game possible and these are four games where we feel we have a good chance of winning. Every time we’ve played Durham in recent times it has always been a tough game and they’re on a bit of a roll at the moment.
“We haven’t played up there for a long time so we’ll have to see what sort of pitch we get.
“The teams around us have to play each other as well and there may be some tricky or surprise results.
“There are no easy games in this division but if we can get back to our early-season form that would be ideal.”
Kent’s rain-ruined draw against basement side Leicestershire last week dented the promotion hopes of Northeast’s side.
Kent appeared to be on top courtesy of career-best bowling figures Stevens.
But they allowed their commanding position to slip away as the visitors posted 350 in their first innings on day two, having been 174-8 at one stage on the opening day.
Northeast then fell just three runs short of a century as Kent replied with 333 which included 46 for Stevens.
Imran Qayyum (39) just failed to steer Kent to a final bonus point despite a 46-run last-wicket stand with Milne (22 not out).
Day three was washed out by the rain and although Qayyum took 2-25 as Leicestershire stuttered to 135- 6 in their second innings, further rain on of 8-75 by Darren Thursday afternoon forced an early end to the game.
The 11-point haul leaves Kent 29 points adrift of Worcestershire in the second promotion place, although Kent do have a game in hand over them, as do Sussex in third.
With only four matches remaining, Northeast knows there is little margin for error.
He said: “It was evenly poised after two days of cricket so to miss Wednesday through rain was disappointing.
“We got ourselves into a good place to win and the weather came down again but that happens in cricket.
“There were times when we played good cricket and others when we didn’t.”