Kent are on the verge of a massive victory against Worcestershire at Canterbury in the County Championship.

The hosts again dominated on day two and need just four more wickets in the morning to wrap up an innings win.

The only blemish for Kent was the dismissal of Jack Leaning just three runs short of what would have been a well-deserved century.

Leaning said: “Hopefully we can have a good morning and wrap the game up. If you’d said at the start of the day that’s the position we’d been in, we’d have snapped your hand off.

"I think as a batting group we’ve really applied ourselves well on a pretty slow, arduous pitch against an attack that’s not really got much pace in it and got a good score on the board. Our bowlers just carried on from where they left off.

“I’d have liked three more runs but it’s one of those where you think 'I can be happy with how I played'. I grafted hard for it, I never felt very fluent at all really just with the way the pitch was, but if I’m going to score runs when I’m out of form it bodes well for when I’m striking it well.”

Grant Stewart, Nathan Gilchrist and Darren Stevens claimed two wickets each to leave the visitors in deep trouble, after Kent had earlier been dismissed 393, a first-innings lead of 260.

Leaning top-scored with 97 and the returning Sam Billings made a stylish 72 as a substitute after being released by England, while Dillon Pennington claimed 4-80.

Ed Barnard and Ben Cox were the not out batsman at stumps, on 10 and two respectively, and with just the tail to come Kent are heavy favourites to conclude victory within three days.

Kent began day two on 184-4 and Darren Stevens was the lone victim in the morning session, caught for 66 at mid-wicket by Barnard off Adam Finch. Kent moved to 265-5 when the new ball was taken just before lunch.

Billings, who was allowed to bat but not keep wicket, produced a high-class innings and brought up his fifty by pulling Pennington for six over square leg, as Kent scored more freely after lunch.

However, Leaning fell three short of his hundred when a Pennington delivery looped off the shoulder of his bat to Barnard at mid-off and Billings skied Josh Baker to the cover boundary, where he was pouched by Pennington.

Stewart was then stumped by Cox off Baker for a punchy 24, Gilchrist was caught behind for eight off Finch and Baker bowled Logan for 12 to leave Matt Milnes stranded on 27 not out.

Worcestershire’s second innings suffered an early blow when Stevens sent Daryl Mitchell’s off stump flying for 14 and after recovering to 51-1, they lost three wickets for as many runs.

Jake Libby was lbw to Stewart for 23, before Gilchrist took two wickets from successive balls. Tom Fell was lbw for 11 and Brett D’Oliveira went for a bizarre golden duck after edging to first slip. Wicket-keeper Ollie Robinson dived across Zak Crawley but failed to grab the ball cleanly. Crawley flicked it in the air and Robinson dived to complete the catch.

Jack Haynes hung around for 68 balls but was lbw to Stevens for 26 and Finch made just one before he was caught behind off Stewart in the penultimate over.

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