Canterbury, T20, Hampshire (173-9, 20 overs) beat Kent (126 all out) by 47 runs A dismal performance from Kent to be comprehensively thrashed by 47 runs by Hampshire tonight. Against Surrey on Wednesday, I thought Kent put in a reasonable performance and were beaten by a fantastic innings by Jason Roy. But not tonight. Kent bowled too many balls pitched up for Hampshire to belt out of the ground whereas Hampshire didn’t and gave Kent very little to hit. Kent had a sniff of a chance as Hampshire lost wickets at regular intervals and were 134-7, but a good innings of 29 from Matt Coles saw them through to 173. Kent needed to start quickly but instead started abysmally and could only muster 38 in the powerplay opening 6 overs, 24 runs fewer than Hampshire scored in their powerplay. The game was almost over at that point unless Stevens could provide a masterclass. But he was under too much pressure to do it on his own; we needed 11 an over off the final 10 overs, and once he was out it was time to start the car. Blake and Billings reignited faint hopes and briefly kept the scoring going at the required rate with 34 off 3 overs from overs 12 to 15, but both then got out. Trying to pick out positives isn’t easy. Claydon was probably the pick of the bowlers with 2-26 off his 4 overs. Stevens was very expensive, mainly due to Carberry’s 18 off his second over, even though Stevens did get Carberry out in that same over. Tredwell bowled tidily, and Harmison (a surprise choice by captain Stevens to bowl 4 overs) started well with his first 3 overs going for just 18, but 16 came off his 4th over, the 19th of the innings, which came at a very bad time as Hampshire were 8 wickets down at that point. Ball was expensive again, as was Riley who only got one over. When Kent batted, 38-2 off 6 overs, and then 65-3 off 10 overs, left far too much to do later on. Cowdrey struggled to lay bat on ball, such a shame after his wonderful batting and bowling at the Oval. His 22 took 27 balls. Billings and Blake briefly batted very well, Billings launching the biggest shot of the night into the top tier of the Frank Woolley stand, and Blake hit two sixes. All of the Hampshire bowlers bowled well, including Matt Coles with 2-24 off his 4 overs. Very disappointing performance. So we will need to win 4 out of the last 4 to give ourselves any chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals in the T20. Back to the County Championship and up to Leicester for a 4 day game starting on Monday. After the boost of the win over Derbyshire, this is a very big game that we need to win. Come on Kent!
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 22:50:44 +0000
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