Kent picked up only their third bonus batting point of the season thanks to a spirited last-wicket partnership at champions Surrey on Thursday in LV= Insurance County Championship Division 1.

All-rounder Joey Evison and Michael Hogan put on 82 in 14 overs to help Kent muster 278 all out after they had earlier slipped from 71-2 to 118-7 with another characteristic mid-order collapse.

Evison hit two sixes and nine fours in an eye-catching 77 not out from 106 balls while Hogan - who turns 42 in less than a fortnight – produced a defiant 48-ball knock of 43.

After opting to bowl first on a well-grassed surface, Surrey’s Dan Worrall made the initial breakthrough by swinging one enough to clip the top of Ben Compton’s off-stump when the left-hander, Kent’s leading run-scorer so far this summer, shouldered arms to go for four.

Zak Crawley hit a couple of boundaries off his legs and had reached 19 when he was surprised by Jordan Clark’s bounce and edged to third slip, where Will Jacks took a sharp chest-high catch falling to his left.

Tawanda Muyeye had also started well and reached 22 when Gus Atkinson found a thin edge through to Ben Foakes with his sixth ball.

Kent were soon 80-4, skipper Sam Billings’ woes with the bat continuing as he drove loosely at Tom Lawes to depart for a nine-ball duck. The visitors were in deep trouble when Jack Leaning’s 28 ended two balls after lunch - Jacks again catching well at third slip.

Clark soon claimed his third wicket when Jordan Cox was bowled through the gate for 18, and Worrall’s post-lunch spell brought him Grant Stewart’s scalp, leg-before for nine to a delivery that, for once, did not swing away from the right-hander.

Wes Agar’s 31 helped lead Kent’s recovery, adding 74 in 16 overs with Evison, as conditions eased and the ball grew softer. After Agar eventually chopped on against Lawes, Kent debutant Arafat Bhuiyan made only two before edging Worrall to first slip.

Hogan joined 21-year-old Evison and the pair even forced the tea interval to be delayed by half-an-hour. But Hogan lasted just three balls after tea when he edged through to Foakes, having just sliced Lawes for a boundary.

Lawes, who took 3-41, had come into the team as a replacement for West Indies Test bowler Kemar Roach, who was released from the scheduled final game of his third stint as a Surrey overseas player to attend to a family matter home in Barbados.

Evison lifted Worrall for two leg-side sixes but Clark finished with 3-61 and Worrall 3-68.

When Surrey replied, Hogan had Rory Burns leg-before for 14 but the hosts reached 88-1 in 21 overs by the close, with Dom Sibley and Ollie Pope unbeaten on 35 and 20 respectively.

Bhuiyan said: “It is an unreal feeling. I have worked hard for this for the past seven or eight years and obviously I have done well in pre-season and for Kent’s second XI.

“Hopefully I can bowl well in this match but it was great to make my debut at the Oval in front of a good crowd and to bowl at two such good batters in Sibley and Pope tonight.

“I also can’t thank the South Asian Cricket Academy in Birmingham enough for accommodating me on their winter training programme ahead of this season.”