THE third century of the summer by close-season recruit Darren Stevens gave championship leaders Kent a tremendous start to their four-day clash with Hampshire at The Rose Bowl.

The former Leicestershire and England A batsman hit 101 from 136 balls and with 13 fours and a six to help the visitors into stumps in a very satisfactory position at 366 for eight – making them only the second visiting county to bag four batting bonus points here this summer.

On reaching 83 Stevens also passed the 1,000 run milestone for the season for the first time and moments later celebrated the eighth first-class century of his career with a double fisted salute.

"It isn’t a great wicket but you can’t go in there thinking this is a terrible pitch and it’s going to go up and down, you just have to play each ball as you see it," said the 29-year-old right hander.

"I said to myself that I should try and be as tight as I could in defence and then anything with width or of full length that I’d give it everything because you never knew on here just when you might get a jaffa.

"When Justin Kemp came in he asked what was going on, so I said knuckle down and hit nice and straight because you never really feel in on this surface."

Stevens added: "Demitri Mascarenhas was the ideal pace for exploiting this type of wicket and the little bit of greenness and uneven bounce.

"If we can get up past the 400 mark it’ll be very difficult for them.

"It put a big smile on my face when I got to the 1,000 because it’s the first time in my career I’ve got there, but it’s not time to light a cigar and sit back yet.

"We’ve still got four games to go after this and we have a championship to win, we are literally taking each session as it comes, but we are knuckling and down and keyed in to winning this title."

The innings by Stevens, only the second century by a visiting batsman at The Rose Bowl this summer, was the best of five workmanlike contributions by the Kent batting order.

After winning the toss and batting first Kent made a sound start through Rob Key and David Fulton who posted 80 for the first wicket in 27 overs.

Fulton was dropped twice in reaching 40, two of five catches that went down in the day, but on such a pitch batsmen deserved their slice of luck.

Fulton became the first of three victims for Mascarenhas, the pick of the home attack with his slow-medium seamers, as the right hander proffered a bat-pad chance to short leg.

Martin van Jaarsveld edged a Mascarenhas leg-cutter low to second slip to go for a single leaving him three short of joining Key and Stevens in the 1,000-run club.

Matt Walker (9) perished soon after lunch when he also nicked a catch to short leg off Chris Tremlett, but Kent re-grouped with a century fourth wicket stand between Stevens and Key.

Key, who passed a fitness test on a strained groin to play in this game, was never at his fluent best on a pitch alien to his firm-handed, 'chase-the-ball' style but to his credit he worked hard for the side in batting 267 minutes for his 88 runs.

He too fell to Michael Brown at short leg just a run after Kent had reached their first batting bonus point.

Stevens and Kemp batted sensibly either side of tea, taking runs where they could from anything slack or wayward to add an attractive 81 in 12 overs for the fifth wicket in the best conditions of the day.

But just two balls after reaching his ton Stevens laid back to cut against Mascarenhas only to pick out Sean Ervine at backward point with a loose cut shot.

Andrew Hall (23) and Niall O’Brien kicked themselves for slack shots in the final session then, three overs from the close, Kemp’s resistance ended for 69 when he played back and across the line to go leg before and give Bickel his third scalp of the day.

SCORECARD

Kent first innings

D P Fulton c Brown b Mascarenhas 45
R W T Key c Brown b Udal 88
M van Jaarsveld c Watson b Mascarenhas 1
M J Walker c Brown b Tremlett 9
D I Stevens c Ervine b Mascarenhas 101
J Kemp lbw b Bichel 69
A J Hall b Bichel 23
N J O’Brien c Mascarenhas b Bichel 9
M M Patel not out 8
S J Cook not out 4
Extras 9

Total 366 for eight after 104 overs – close

Fall of wicket: 1-80, 2-90, 3-101, 4-201, 5-282, 6-336, 7-350, 8-357

Bowling: Bichel 21-3-77-3, Tremlett 19-1-62-1, Mascarenhas 24-8-68-3, Ervine 11-0-56-0, Watson 14-0-43-0, Udal 14-3-42-1, Lamb 1-0-9-0.