Red Rose clinch Finals Day trip
AN assured innings of 46 from Keaton Jennings and a captain’s cameo of 30 not out by Dane Vilas proved enough for Lancashire to land a six-wicket win over Kent in a lowscoring Vitality Blast quarter-final in Canterbury.
A near 6,000 crowd was silenced as the Red Rose county clinched victory with eight balls to spare courtesy of an unbroken fifth-wicket stand of 50 between Vilas and Jordan Clark.
Vilas said: “I thought we bowled incredibly well and we were happy to keep them to that score, though obviously we didn’t expect the pitch to turn that much.
“Keaton came in and got a few away, rotated the strike well and made sure he took us deep. We expected the pitch to grease up a bit and skid on under lights, but credit to Kent, they worked hard in the field and bowled really well. I’ve got bruises and scars all over my body where we were diving around trying to turn ones into twos and I’m delighted we made it over the line.”
The 2015 champions chased down Spitfires’ inadequate 133 for nine to qualify for next month’s finals day in Birmingham.
Needing to score at a seemingly comfortable rate of 6.7 an over for victory, Lancashire suffered the firstover shock of losing Jos Buttler to a golden duck, stumped by counterpart Sam Billings when down the pitch and pushing at a Joe Denly legspinner.
Arron Lilley lost middle stump when looking to cut Adam Milne and Alex Davies might have gone for six had Imran Qayyum held on to a stinging caught and bowled chance as Lancashire ended their powerplay on 38 for two.
Davies and Jennings steadied the Lancashire ship with a stand of 44 before Davies holed out naively to long-off against Qayyum as the visitors went 7.3 overs without a boundary. Jennings, the only batsman to time his drives, was four short of the game’s first 50 when he went to an athletic leg-side stumping by Billings as Qayyum finished his excellent stint with two for 17.
With 23 required off the last 18 balls Vilas (30*) and Jordan Clark (29*) held their nerve with and a half-century stand in 5.3 overs including a Clark maximum over mid-wicket – the visitors sole six of the night.
Batting first after winning the toss Kent’s top-order batters struggled for timing on a dry, two-paced pitch as Lancashire skipper Dane Vilas intelligently took pace off the ball by utilising four spin bowlers.
The hosts took 11 runs from the first over by off-spinner Steven Croft, but crucially lost opening bat Daniel Bell-Drummond run out without facing off the second ball of the night.
Heino Kuhn followed in the next over from Toby Lester when, in attempting the run down, the South African nicked through to the keeper Buttler. Buttler took his second catch when Spitfires’ leading T20 scorer Denly, with only 13 to his name, edged a back-foot force against Jordan Clark.
Spitfires limped to the end of their powerplay on 40 for three and should have lost Sean Dickson with the total on 43, only for Buttler to fumble a stumping chance in the first-over of left-arm wrist spin from Zahir Khan.
Kent eventually raised 50 in the eighth over but, with spin from both ends, boundaries proved hard to come by on a wicket where the ball appeared to be holding up on the surface. Billings and Dickson added 40 before Dickson, in trying to force the pace, skied one from leg-spinner Matt Parkinson to deep extra cover.
Parkinson, the man-of-the-match, struck again four balls later having Marcus Stoinis caught at slip. Alex Blake gifted Parkinson the last of his three for 27 return when holing out to deep mid-wicket then top-scorer Billings missed his late cut against Zahir to lose off stump.