Kent Spitfires missed out on a T20 Blast Quarter-Final spot as they lost away to South Group winners Somerset on Sunday.

With Essex Eagles having beaten Surrey earlier in the day to move into fourth position, Kent knew they had to win the televised game in order to progress to the knockout stages.

Spitfires, who were without tournament top run-scorer Daniel Bell-Drummond and experienced players Joe Denly, Wes Agar, Fred Klaassen and Kane Richardson, won the toss and elected to field.

Will Smeed led the assault by the home side with 61 off 28 balls, while former Kent batsman Sean Dickson (41), Lewis Gregory (37) and Tom Kohler-Cadmore (31) made contributions to a score of 221-7.

Italian international all-rounder Grant Stewart claimed 4-48 but left-arm spinner George Linde was the pick of the Kent bowlers with 2-25.

In reply, Kent could only post 206-7, Joey Evison cracking 46 off 24 balls, Jack Leaning 41 and skipper Sam Billings 36.

Billings said: “We fancied chasing 222 but, even in defeat, I'm really proud of the lads, losing by only 15 runs to a very good side.

“Somerset have three international bowlers in their team and it showed tonight. Of course, we took notice of the Essex result earlier but, even before that, we felt we could come here and win.

“Four or five injuries have taken a toll. So, while we are very disappointed to miss out on the Quarter-Finals, we can take a lot from how we played.

“Daniel Bell-Drummond and Joe Denly were huge losses for us.”

Despite the visitors claiming the early wicket of Tom Banton, caught and bowled off a waist-high Stewart delivery, Somerset made 63 runs inside the powerplay.

Smeed was soon taking advantage of a true batting pitch with a short boundary on the town side at Taunton. He and Kohler-Cadmore responded to the loss of Banton with a string of sweetly-struck boundaries.

Both cleared the ropes in the powerplay and had taken the score to 72 in the eighth over when Kohler-Cadmore was caught at long-on off Stewart, having faced just 18 balls.

Smeed went past 2,000 T20 runs with his fourth six, launched over cover off Stewart, before going to a 23-ball 50.

Another exhilarating mixture of muscular blows and deft touches ended when 21-year-old Smeed, yet to play in a first-class match, swept a ball from Linde and was caught at deep backward square, with the total 103 in the 10th over.

Tom Abell also fell to a sweep shot off Linde, Jordan Cox taking a brilliant diving catch. But Dickson - who played for Kent from 2015 to 2019 - ensured there was no slowing of the scoring rate, hitting three sixes and two fours in a stand of 47 in less than five overs with Gregory.

He was eventually caught behind off what would have been a wide from Stewart, but Gregory’s 19-ball innings guaranteed Somerset a challenging total.

Kent’s hopes of chasing it down suffered an early blow when opener Tawanda Muyeye hit a six off ex-Kent overseas bowler Matt Henry’s first ball of the second over before he lifted a catch to mid-on off the next delivery.

Alex Blake threatened briefly, smashing a big six off Henry in racing to 24 off just 10 balls, before being run-out, backing up as the New Zealand seamer fingertipped a drive from Billings onto the stumps.

Billings began watchfully but cleared the ropes for the first time off Ben Green in the seventh over, fetching a ball from outside off-stump and dispatching it over deep square. Spitfires had ended the powerplay 63-3 - still in the game.

Billings greeted the introduction of leg-spinner Ish Sodhi with a six over long-on and was warming to his task with successive boundaries off Gregory before Somerset’s captain struck back by bowling him with the last ball of the ninth over.

Leaning responded with a six over deep square off Overton and followed up with a four to third-man as 17 came off the 11th over.

Experienced leg-spinner Sodhi had Linde caught at long-off and Kent required 103 from the last eight, although some defiant blows from Leaning and Evison reduced the target to 69 runs from five overs.

Evison then hit Green for six as 16 came off the 16th over.

Leaning followed up by clearing the ropes off Davey but, when he fell to Gregory two overs later, having faced 30 balls, Somerset regained control and Evison’s impressive effort ended when he was caught off Henry to kill off 2021 Blast winners Kent’s hopes.

Spitfires finished two points behind Essex, despite having a better run rate, with seven wins and seven defeats from their 14 Blast matches this summer.

They return to County Championship Division 1 action against Warwickshire at Canterbury from Monday.