Kent Spitfires were consigned to a third successive Metro Bank One-Day Cup defeat, losing by 79 runs against Warwickshire at Rugby School on Wednesday.
The Bears totalled 283-9, largely thanks to Ed Barnard (60) and one-time Sandwich Town player Kai Smith’s 58. On a pitch offering some turn, they coped with a spin attack led by Matt Parkinson (1-36), who bowled beautifully.
Kent replied with 204 all out, only ever partially recovering from 19-3 in the early stages of their reply.
Teenager Jaydn Denly hit 52 and Harry Finch 50 but leg-spinner Tazeem Ali followed his weekend 5-43 against Northamptonshire with 5-54 as the visitors succumbed again.
Kent head coach Adam Hollioake said: “It’s disappointing.
“The toss, I felt, was quite important in this game. It would have been nice to win the toss.
“The wicket spun and deteriorated as it went along, it was a good wicket, but it definitely got harder to bat on second time around. As the ball got older in both innings, it got more difficult.
“That said, we’re playing three young under-19 players, although they have played well.
“We’ve got to find a way of being a bit more competitive than that.
“With the ball, I thought we were disappointing in the first hour and then that allowed them to get to a total that was always going to be tough.
“I think we did well to keep them to that. We started off that badly that, at one stage, we were looking like we might be chasing over 300 so that’s a positive.
“All in all, it’s a bit disappointing but, as I’ve said, we’ve got a young side.
“We’ve just got to keep trying to push on and improve.”
Warwickshire elected to bat in front of another excellent crowd at the outground, seeking a stronger start than in their first two group games.
They got it as openers Barnard and Rob Yates (46) added 97 runs in 14 overs before Yates drove Joey Evison (1-51) to cover.
Spitfires’ spinners reeled the run-rate back in by taking wickets.
Barnard posted a polished 52-ball half-century, passing 2,000 career List A runs in the process, but overbalanced on a sweep and was stumped from Denly (2-56). Zen Malik drove Denly to cover, Hamza Shaikh fell to a superb catch by his England under-19 colleague Ekansh Singh at deep mid-wicket off Jack Leaning (1-17).
Alex Davies lifted Parkinson to long off, supplying the leg-spinner with a well-deserved wicket.
At 179-5, Warwickshire needed rebooting and Smith and Vansh Jani (42) delivered with a fluent partnership of 79 from 64 balls.
Again, Kent hit back well towards the end as Fred Klaassen (2-43) had Smith caught behind and fit-again skipper Grant Stewart (2-33) trapped Michael Booth and Jani lbw in the same over.
Kent’s reply started badly as they lost three wickets in four balls to leave them in the lurch.
Ben Dawkins was caught at cover off Barnard (2-38), who bowled Evison first ball. Chris Benjamin, facing his former team-mates, also bagged a golden duck when he edged Ethan Bamber (1-28) and wicketkeeper Smith took a fine diving catch.
Denly and Finch rebuilt with an assured stand of 91 runs in 88 balls but both perished soon after reaching their half-centuries.
Denly sliced Ali to short third man and Finch skied an attempted big hit at Adam Sylvester.
Sylvester marked his List A debut with an excellent first spell of 1-7 from five overs and his accuracy throttled the pursuit in tandem with Ali’s potency.
Ali hit the stumps of Leaning and Stewart and, after Booth bowled Singh (42), returned to remove Parkinson and Michael Cohen in four balls to follow his maiden five-for in the previous game with another match-shaping performance.
Spitfires will return to action against Lancashire at Beckenham on Sunday.
