Kent will need to bat out the final day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match with Hampshire at Canterbury to rescue a draw.

The hosts still have all 10 seconds innings wickets intact after they advanced to 66-0 at the close of day three on Saturday after earlier bowling out Hampshire for 373.

Kent had started the day well, with Wes Agar taking three early wickets to help reduce Hampshire to 159-5. But the visitors kicked on after lunch and took a 278-run lead.

After day two had been reduced to just 6.1 overs, the weather finally improved on Saturday morning, with Hampshire resuming on 103-0.

Agar struck twice in the third over of the day. Fletcha Middleton was first to go, edging behind for 48 and handing Jordan Cox his first red-ball dismissal as a wicket-keeper. Agar then produced an absolute jaffa that sent Nick Gubbins’ off-stump cartwheeling.

He then had Joe Weatherley (58) lbw, but was denied a fourth victim when Zak Crawley dropped Ben Brown, although the batter failed to cash in, adding just a single before he was lbw to Grant Stewart for 10. James Vince was given lbw to Michael Hogan for 24 and Hampshire endured a spell of 7.4 overs without scoring.

Ian Holland took 36 balls to get off the mark, although when he did it was a stylish cut off Joey Evison for four and he and Liam Dawson survived to lunch.

A potentially crucial stand of 94 was ended in emphatic fashion when Evison (3-86) splayed Holland’s stumps for 41, but by then the momentum was entirely with Hampshire.

It was 308-6 and Dawson continued until he holed out to Hamid Qadri and was caught at mid-wicket by Tawanda Muyeye for 84. Kyle Abbott was lbw to Evison for two before Fuller tried to sweep a full toss from Qadri and was caught on the boundary by Muyeye. When Barker clubbed Evison to Muyeye for 25, it left Kent with a hazardous 26 overs to survive until stumps.

Dawson put down a tough chance to catch Ben Compton off Mohammad Abbas, but the openers batted through until failing light forced Hampshire to bring on their spinners for the final five overs and neither Dawson nor Weatherley was able to break through. Crawley will resume on 35 with Compton 30 not out overnight.

Agar said: “I guess it was a different kind of day today. You take five wickets in the first session and then they came back well and put together good partnerships on a wicket that slowed up a fair bit and made it difficult for us.

“We were happy with the way we bowled today, we had a chart. We realised we couldn’t change (what had happened) and we set that tone. Yes we would have liked to have got more wickets in that second session and continued it but I think we fought well and then for the boys at the back end there to fight hard and give us a platform for tomorrow is a positive.

“I think at times you can get caught into trying to do too much and thinking ‘What can I do to get those wickets?’ so for me it was about literally about going back to simplicity, hitting that same spot as much as I could.

“I found it difficult early from that top end with the slope, getting my line so I had a good chat with my bowling coach, discussed my lines and where I needed to be and I thought I rectified it quite well in that first session.

“Zak and Ben are class players and it gives us a great platform to bat on tomorrow. Obviously with the rain around and everything it’s going to be hard to fight for a win, but it’s little wins in this situation.”