Kent’s struggles continued on day one of their Vitality County Championship clash with Lancashire at Canterbury on Sunday.
Having lost their way in the T20 competition, Kent were hoping a change of format would bring about a change in fortune.
Instead, they were bowled out for just 244 and saw their lead reduced to 206 runs at stumps, despite Beyers Swanepoel bowling Lancashire opener Keaton Jennings for a duck.
If Kent fans had come to see James Anderson they were disappointed. Despite making the trip south he was left out of the squad and, perhaps unable to believe his luck at having been asked to bat against an Anderson-free attack, Ben Compton (55) plundered 11 from Tom Bailey’s opening over.
The scoring rate soon slowed, however. Will Williams found Marcus O’Riordan’s edge in the fourth over and although George Bell dropped him, he’d moved on to just 16 when George Balderson had him caught at third slip by George Lavelle.
Bailey switched to the Nackington Road end and got Daniel Bell-Drummond for four but Joey Evison joined Compton and batted through to lunch, at which stage it was 102-2.
During the interval, the crowd realised Anderson was bowling at one stump on the outfield and around 100 fans formed a circle to watch. When he’d finished, it took him nearly five minutes to reach the pavilion as he stopped for dozens of selfies.
When the outfield had finally cleared Kent suffered a mini-collapse. Evison went for 25, edging Bailey to Matty Hurst, before Balderson claimed two wickets in the space of 10 balls. Harry Finch drove him to Josh Bohannon at mid-off for one and Compton fell to an ankle-high catch by Jennings at second slip.
That left Kent on 124-5 and it nearly got worse for the hosts as Tawanda Muyeye was on 23 when he pulled Nathan Lyon to the mid-wicket boundary, only to be dropped by Jack Blatherwick.
Having dropped into the middle order after struggling as an opener, Muyeye responded with his first half-century of the season.
Debutant Charlie Stobo joined him and made an inventive 36 before he was bowled by Lyon, ending a stand of 82 and leaving Kent on 210-6 at tea.
Swanepoel made 19 before he top-edged Lyon behind and Matt Parkinson went for a nine-ball duck against his former county, lbw to Luke Wells.
Lyon then bowled George Garrett middle-stump for three and although Muyeye (59) was dropped again, this time off Lyon by a sliding Williams, he was lbw to Wells in the next over, denying Kent a single batting point and leaving Lancashire to face 14 overs before stumps.
Swanepoel sent Jennings’ off stump flying for an eight-ball duck but he was the only victim, with Wells just surviving a dicey penultimate over from Stobo. They will resume on 38-1 on day two.
Muyeye said: “I think we obviously left a lot of runs out there. It wasn’t easy for the guys starting this morning, but everyone’s pretty upbeat, the pitch is doing bits so hopefully we can utilise that new ball in the morning.
“It was a nice pitch to play on, I think as a batter you got value for your runs and as a bowler you got value for bowling well. It’s a pretty good cricket wicket so hopefully as the game unfolds it’ll become interesting.
“You always look back and think what could have been but I think we just have to take it on the chin and crack on. Hopefully when we go back in in the second innings we can make it count.
“It’s been pretty tough going (this season) so to go out there and face one of the best spinners in the world, I mean I wouldn’t say I was perfect against him but to just go against my natural game and absorb the pressure, I couldn’t really go out there and play shots so I was just happy to just absorb and it was pretty cool facing Nathan Lyon.
“Last week in the nets I started hitting it pretty well I’ve kind of gone back to my old tekkers, going back to what I know and what I trust. It seems like I’m moving a bit better and hopefully I’ll get back to where I need to be.”
