Kent’s batting woes continued on day two of their County Championship Division 1 match against Hampshire at Canterbury.
The hosts slumped to 64-5 in reply to Hampshire’s first innings total of 403 as they had no answer to Kyle Abbot (3-23).
After an even first day, the game swung into Hampshire’s favour during the morning session. Tom Prest hit a majestic 102 and Brad Wheal chipped in with his highest first-class score of 61.
Kent, who could be officially relegated this week if they lose and results elsewhere go against them, still trailed by 339 at stumps.
The visitors began day two on 213-7 and looked comfortable for the first hour until Joey Evison came on from the Nackington Road end and removed Abbott for 26, victim of a brilliant slip catch by Jack Leaning.
Prest, who only had 15 at the start of play, responded by dumping Matt Parkinson into the Old Dover Road hedges to bring up his fifty and he took 21 from the over.
He then reached his century from exactly 100 balls by dropping to one knee and smearing Charlie Stobo for six over deep mid-wicket before he finally fell to the same bowler after a juggling catch from Jas Singh on the deep mid-wicket boundary.
Even the last wicket pair put on 71. Wheal twisted the knife with an aggressive cameo that included a pulled six off Singh and it was 377-9 when rain ushered in the lunch break.
Wheal was stuck on 49 for 15 balls before he nudged Parkinson for a single and he then clubbed Stobo for a six over square leg to take Hampshire past 400 before he was bowled playing on to Stobo.
Kent’s response was all too predictable. Muhammad Abbas, who also achieved a personal best of 13 not out, strangled Tawanda Muyeye, who was perhaps unfortunate to be given caught behind for five at the start of Kent’s sixth over.
Abbott then took three wickets in five balls. Daniel Bell-Drummond went first in the 11th over, caught for ten by Fletcha Middleton, a ball after he’d been dropped by Prest. Jack Leaning and Joe Denly then both went for second-ball ducks, the former caught by Toby Albert, the latter leg before to a ball that hit him above the knee roll.
Joey Evison made 21 before Wheal had him caught behind but the hosts were spared further punishment when play was suspended at 4.34pm due to a combination of bad light and increasingly heavy rain, which persuaded the umpires there was no realistic chance of resuming.
Denly said: “It was pretty frustrating as a whole. We turned up this morning with real optimism, thinking we could get them out for 250 and that didn’t quite happen for us.
“We found ourselves with them getting to 400 and we weren’t able to cause them the trouble we would have liked. Take nothing away from Prest, he played a fantastic knock and he’s an impressive young player.
“Obviously we would have liked to have bowled them out a lot cheaper than that and with the bat we didn’t get off to the start we wanted.
“They took the momentum from their bowling into their batting and we know they’ve got a quality bowling attack. They really made the most of those new ball conditions. We’re well behind and in the next two days we got a lot of fighting to do. Hopefully we’ll scrap and get something out of the game.
“We’ve struggled to take 20 wickets in a game, that has been a pattern this year but I think it’s important not to dwell on that too much and always try to learn and get better. There’s a lot of frustration in the changing room, that’s for sure, there’s no hiding away from that, but like I say there’s still two days in the game and hopefully we can get something out of it.”
