Kent opener Ben Compton has put his bright start to the season down to better pitches.
The 31-year-old has two centuries to his name already, including his best Kent score of 178 against Gloucestershire in their Rothesay County Championship game against Gloucestershire.
With a first-innings lead of 79 after Kent were dismissed for 393, Gloucestershire reached 112-2 when bad light and rain curtailed play early on day three.
Compton’s ton means he’s already scored 382 runs at an average of 76.40 in five knocks this summer.
“Obviously I’m very chuffed on a personal level,” said Compton. “I thought the morning was really important with Kashif Ali. We put an invaluable partnership together, both to try and get closer to the deficit and to try and take some time out of the game.
“It’s hopefully going to mean that it’s harder for us to lose if it comes to that but also sets up the game potentially tomorrow depending on what they want to do.
“There’s no secret, we’ve played on some better wickets this year in terms of pace on the pitch so it’s been more seamer friendly at times, particularly on day one and day two, but as we saw with the Middlesex game in particular, it kept its pace throughout and then became really enjoyable for batting and Tawanda Muyeye, and I really enjoyed that.
“This one’s very similar, probably a little on the slower side, but it still allows you to score freely, once the new ball dies down. That’s the tricky time and if you can get through that then it’s good to score.
“It was a rather strange last hour of play given the way they started their second innings, I thought by the looks of it they were flying and they were going to try and make a total and leave us to see what we could chase and set up a game.
“The last hour was a bit strange in that respect so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Obviously we’ll try and do our best to get them out tomorrow if we can and we’re still looking to win the game but we’ll just have to play it by ear.”
Kent were 318-7 in their first innings when play began in cold conditions with the lights on this morning.
Compton was on 144 overnight and had only moved to 148 when he flashed at Marchand de Lange and was dropped by Cameron Green at first slip. He hit the next ball to the mid-wicket boundary to pass 150, but Jas Singh produced just one elegant cover drive for four before being caught behind off Matt Taylor for five.
Taylor was denied a second wicket when Kashif Ali hit him straight into Miles Hammond’s chest at short leg and Kashif survived for 89 balls to make 34 not out, including a six he swept off Ollie Price that sailed over cow corner.
He put on 60 with Compton, who finally went when he charged down the wicket to Graeme van Buuren and was stumped by James Bracey. Nathan Gilchrist lasted just eight balls before he was lbw to the same bowler for one, leaving Kent seven runs short of an additional batting point.
Gloucestershire’s Ben Charlesworth was on 17 when he edged Singh, but Chris Benjamin, keeping in place of Harry Finch who has a broken finger, put the chance down.
Bancroft went lbw to Joey Evison for 22 and Jack Leaning had Charlesworth (58) caught by Zak Crawley at cover. Light rain then began to fall but the players stayed out until 3.50pm when the light deteriorated to the point that the umpires called an early tea.
Rainfall prevented a resumption and play was abandoned for the day at 5.18pm.
Report from ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay
