Kent escaped with a draw from their LV= Insurance County Championship Division 1 game with Nottinghamshire - after nearly imploding in pursuit of a target of 168 in Canterbury.

The hosts were grateful to former Nottinghamshire players Joey Evison and Ben Compton, who blocked for almost 20 overs after Asitha Fernando took three quick wickets to reduce them to 59-5. Kent were 86-6 when the teams shook hands.

On a final day at Canterbury that veered between tedium and extreme tension, the visitors were bowled out for 348 in their second innings after being forced to follow-on.

A game which Kent looked likely to win and then seemed to be heading for a draw ignited in the final session.

When Joe Clarke and Brett Hutton came together in the day’s seventh over, Nottinghamshire were still trailing Kent’s first-innings score of 446 by one run - with just three second-innings wickets left.

Clarke batted for 277 balls to make 141 not out and he put on 148 runs for the eighth wicket with Hutton, who produced a career-best knock of 84.

By the time their partnership was broken, the visitors were 147 ahead and, when Yuzvendra Chahal (2-43) then took two wickets in as many balls, it set up a fraught finale. Having dominated for most of the first three days, Kent couldn’t resist the target and ended up enduring a nerve-shredding last hour.

Nottinghamshire began the day 177-5 in their second innings and looking like they might not survive the first hour.

After a start delayed until 11.20am by rain, Kent took the new ball as soon as it became available and Michael Hogan (5-63) claimed two wickets from as many balls.

His fourth delivery got rid of Lyndon James for 39 after he edged him to Jack Leaning at second slip, ending a stand of 102 and Calvin Harrison went lbw to the next delivery.

Hutton took a single from the hat-trick ball to bring the scores level and played like he was determined to set Kent a target, advancing to 48 not out at lunch, at which point it was 235-7, a lead of 54 runs.

He reached 50 with a single from Nathan Gilchrist (0-88) and, as the game began to drift away from Kent, Clarke drove Hogan for four to reach three figures.

There were few chances but the game sparked to life when Hutton blocked a delivery from Aron Nijjar (0-83) and Clarke hared down the wicket before he realised his partner hadn’t moved. Chahal ran him out by a yard.

Still bruised by their defeat at Middlesex, Nottinghamshire looked unlikely to declare and seemed comfortable enough at 348-8 at tea, but Chahal had Paterson caught by Daniel Bell-Drummond for five with the fourth ball of the evening session and he wrapped up the innings two balls later when Fernando was caught by Zak Crawley for a duck.

Kent were sensing what would have been only their third red-ball win of the season but they approached the chase as if they were playing T20 Blast cricket instead of chasing a modest five-an-over.

Crawley was sent out to open alongside Tawanda Muyeye instead of his regular partner Compton but, after he crunched Paterson (1-34) for four, he hit the next delivery straight to James at deep square leg.

Fernando (3-40) then had Bell-Drummond caught for four by Harrison at slip, Leaning was run-out for six chasing a single that existed only in his head, and Muyeye tried to hook Fernando and fell to an acrobatic Tom Moores grab.

With Kent reeling on 52-4, Compton was sent out to drop anchor but Fernando produced a jaffa to send Harry Finch’s off-stump flying for seven.

When Evison joined Compton, with a minimum 19.1 overs left, they made no attempt to chase the runs.

The latter was caught by Ben Slater off Matt Montgomery (1-0) after an hour’s resistance, but Nijjar and Evison clung on.

Kent head coach Matt Walker said: “It would be easy to sort of reflect on that last couple of hours and be disappointed but I think, ultimately, we’ve played some really good cricket over these four days.

“It’s been a really positive brand of cricket with a team that, really from ball one, set our stall out to win this game of cricket.

“We were positive in everything we did – the way we batted, first innings, the way we bowled, first innings, and got a good side to follow-on and went that route, which I thought was a really positive move to try and win this game. We knew there was a bit of weather around.

“We gave it everything. We tried to win the game on the last day. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite go to plan. We lost too many wickets too early and had to put the anchor down.

“But I thought we were excellent all week.

“There were some really good individual performances but, as a team, watching them out there – how they threw their bodies on the line all the way through and never stopped trying – that was incredibly impressive.”

Kent took 12 points from the match in their battle against relegation while Nottinghamshire claimed eight points.