A last-wicket partnership of 68 helped Kent recover with the bat before the visitors picked up five wickets in the final session to finish firmly on top after an entertaining first day in the County Championship at Grace Road.

Kent captain Sam Billings' decision to bat first raised eyebrows given the cloud cover, and home seamer Chris Wright certainly found plenty of movement during a testing first spell, dismissing Jordan Cox for a second-ball duck in his first over with an out-swinger that the Kent opener edged to Colin Ackermann at second slip.

Zak Crawley and Joe Denly responded positively, getting forward as much as possible and putting away the bad ball in compiling a partnership of 76 for the second wicket. Crawley was particularly impressive off his legs against the seamers, but looked less assured against the left-arm spin of Callum Parkinson, and having reached his 50 off 68 deliveries, the right-hander went back to pull a shorter delivery from the spinner over mid-wicket only to find it was a quicker delivery that hurried on to him, and bowled him off his back leg.

Having made the breakthrough, Parkinson followed up in style, first by producing a delivery that turned sufficiently to take Denly's edge, Ackermann taking a fine one-handed catch low to his right at slip, and then bowling Billings through the gate for 11 to send Kent in to lunch on 96-4.

Three more wickets followed quickly after the break to leave Kent 116-7. Ollie Robinson top-edged an attempted sweep at Parkinson to give Lewis Hill a simple catch at backward square, before Wright had Darren Stevens caught at second slip without scoring and then won a leg before decision against Grant Stewart with a full delivery.

Not for the first time this season, however, the Kent lower order dragged the innings back from the brink. Matt Milnes (22) gave Jack Leaning solid support in a partnership of 42 for the eighth wicket before losing his leg stump to Ed Barnes, and although Nathan Gilchrist was run out without scoring James Logan saw Leaning through to his half-century and beyond before he too was run out.

A score that looked no more than competitive looked positively formidable by the close. Sam Evans was caught by Leaning at third slip after chasing a wide delivery from Milnes before Stewart took the key wicket of Ackermann with a fine delivery which moved away just enough to take the edge.

In gloomy light, Stewart followed by bowling Hill off the inside edge, Stevens had Hassan Azad caught behind and left-arm spinner Logan capped off the day by having Swindells leg before with his first delivery to reduce the hosts to 47-5, a score advanced to 66-5 by the close.

Leaning said: "It didn't go quite the way we wanted after being 79-1 with Joe Denly and Zak Crawley going nicely, but credit to them, they bowled quite nicely and there were a couple of good wickets in there.

"But the pitch is a tricky one, there's a lot in it for the seamers and an incredible amount for the spinners, the way they've put sand in and dusted the ends, and it'll be interesting to see how it breaks up over the next couple of days.

"We just tried to dig in at the bottom end and build a few partnerships, and we managed to do that before picking up a few wickets of our own in the final session"

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