KENT made a dreadful start to their NatWest Pro40 campaign by allowing Surrey to boss Sunday’s opening Division 2 clash and win by six wickets in Guildford.

The Brown Caps swept Spitfires aside with disdain in front of a big crowd here for the final day of festival week and to witness a Kent performance of very few positives as the visitors went down with three overs of the game still remaining.

Just 24 hours before their crucial Twenty20 Cup quarter-final clash with Leicestershire, Spitfires fielded sloppily and were alarmingly out-gunned with bat and ball, conceding four no balls and as many wides in a miserable stint in the field.

In seemingly ideal conditions for batting on this postage stamp ground with a parched, rapid outfield and with tiny 60-yard boundaries square of the wicket, Spitfires posted a paltry 229 for nine and were ultimately made to pay.

With the early fielding restrictions Surrey’s one-day openers Ali Brown and James Benning duly showed Kent how this one-day league competition should be played by posting 50 within 31 balls as Spitfires new ball pairing of Amjad Khan and Tyron Henderson bowled with too much width.

Khan opened up with successive no-balls and free hits to concede 17 from his first over and 58 runs from the seven overs skipper Rob Key entrusted him to bowl.

Though Henderson snared Brown (10) to a catch at third-man, Benning again went on to bully Kent’s attack for the third time this summer.

In the two Twenty20 qualifying games between these sides Benning clubbed 88 at The Oval and 66 in the reverse fixture at St Lawrence, and he was soon into his stride here with a half-century from 29 balls and with 11 fours.

He had reached 71 from 51 balls and Surrey barely needed another hundred by the time Benning fell to Dwayne Bravo,

Attempting a run down to third-man from a slower ball, Benning got a fine edge low through to the wicketkeeper.

The duo of Mark Butcher and Mark Ramprakash then showed all their experience by steering their side ever nearer an emphatic win by just working the balls into the gaps to score at five an over without risk.

Bravo’s additional bounce accounted for Ramprakash (39) to a catch behind, then Martin Saggers had Rikki Clarke (23) taken to another catch at the wicket.

But with Butcher in control Brown Caps were still in the ascendancy and it was the left-hander who stroked the winning runs to finish unbeaten on 52.

Though the adjacent pitch to this at Woodbridge Road led to a championship run-feast between Surrey and Somerset earlier in the week, the wicket for this game appeared a little-two paced at the start of Kent’s innings despite looking like another belter.

From ball one Azhar Mahmood got the ball to swing while, at the other end Tim Murtagh extracted some lively bounce to cause problems aplenty for Kent openers Darren Stevens and Neil Dexter.

Just as the Kent pair thought they had seen off the hardness of the new ball umpire David Constant agreed to Mahmood’s request to change the out of shape ball and Kent’s openers were forced to re-group all over again as the fresh ball continued to swing and bounce.

Dexter’s patience finally snapped in the ninth over when he miscued an attempted back-foot force against Mahmood high to mid-off to bring in Geraint Jones for his second appearance in Kent colours this season.

Realising Kent’s innings was in danger slipping into the doldrums the England man went for his shots, but the big drives either picked out fielders or found thick edges to fly down to the ropes at third-man.

There was one trademark sweetly-timed straight drive, but otherwise he was never at his best in reaching 41 from 42 balls as Jones and Stevens took Kent into three-figures after 21 overs.

Jones perished in the when slicing a straight drive against Anil Kumble high to mid-off.

Stevens, dropped on 30 when Kumble failed to hold a stinging straight drive, went to his half-century from 67 balls and celebrated with two rasping boundaries off Jade Dernbach, who bounced back by bowling

Martin van Jaarsveld (11) off a bottom edge as the South African attempted to pull.

Stevens had reached 81 from 92 balls before he went to left-arm spinner Nayan Doshi after toe-ending a slog sweep high to mid-wicket.

Improvisation was also proving tricky for a Spitfires top-order who clearly lacked confidence in the Guildford pitch and Matt Walker and James Tredwell soon perished when trying the unusual.

Skipper Rob Key added some momentum by hitting the first six of the innings in the 37th over from the seemingly innocuous Doshi, but to his credit Doshi threw the next ball even higher and pegged back middle stump after Key missed a wild slog.

With their skipper gone having scored 33 from 26 balls and time running out, Kent sent in their big-gun overseas all-rounders – but both misfired.

Dwayne Bravo sliced to point then, after clubbing the second six of the innings, Henderson lost leg stump next ball to a Jade Dernbach yorker.

Khan and Martin Saggers at least ensured Spitfires batted out their 40 overs but their total proved hopelessly inadequate.

Dernbach finished with flattering figures of three for 44 and Doshi bagged three for 51, but there were top-class bowling performances from Mahmood with two for 29 and Kumble, who took one for 37 despite injuring his hand.