Kent Spitfires won by 15 runs

SPITFIRES held their nerve in front of a 5,000 crowd at sun-baked Beckenham to land a 15-run win over Hampshire in their fourth Twenty20 Cup southern group qualifier.

Despite a quick and bouncy track, rapid outfield and licence for the batsmen to go for their shots it proved a low-scoring thriller after both sides suffered top-order collapses when batting.

It was Kent who took first use of a pristine white wicket but poor shot selection saw them lose six wickets for 37 runs in the space of seven overs.

The collapse started when Neil Dexter (1) nicked to slip in the third over then, in the following over Andrew Hall top edged a pull shot to Michael Carberry at fine-leg having been undone by the extra bounce in this pacey pitch.

Darren Stevens, had struck 24 from 19 balls, when he drove uppishly to mid-off then, six runs on James Tredwell missed a slog off a Dimitri Mascarenhas slower ball to lose his leg stump.

The crowd fell almost silent when Martin van Jaarsveld, so often Kent’s salvation in a crisis, spliced a catch to Shaun Udal when on nought and many feared a heavy defeat and an early finish when Matt Walker chipped a catch to deep mid-wicket to also go without scoring.

The essential thing at that point was for Kent to bat out their overs and skipper Rob Key and new signing Tyron Henderson ensured they did so with an intelligent seventh wicket stand of 62 in eight overs.

Key only contributed 18 from 23 balls, but in doing so he steadied the ship and also doubled his aggregate from Kent’s first three matches.

He hit one six, and that was a tad fortunate as Mitchell Stokes caught the ball only to carry it over the ropes, so it was left to Henderson to provide the fireworks with four fours and three sixes on his way to a Kent-best 63 from 44 balls.

The fun ended when Key worked across the line to go leg before and become one of Dominic Thornley’s excellent return of four for 22.

Niall O’Brien (6) and then Henderson, to a silly run out when attempting to steal a bye to the keeper, went in the late thrash but at least Kent had posted 134 for nine and given their attack something to defend.

It would need the entire Spitfires’ attack to show consistency and nous if they were to do so but the omens did not look good when Amjad Khan opened up with a wayward opening stint that included six wides. Thankfully he soon settled down and went on to concede just five runs off the bat.

At the other end Hall bowled his heart out, extracting extra bounce with his additional pace he forced Stokes to slice a catch high to O’Brien and make it 10 for one.

Khan then got in on the act by having Thornley caught at extra cover from a back foot force and when Carberry edged Henderson’s third ball of the match to the keeper Kent began to sense an opportunity.

Chris Benham followed a Hall leg-cutter to give O’Brien a second catch and with half their overs gone the Hawks lost their fifth wicket when Greg Lamb (26) went to a stunning run out when Walker plucked out middle stump with a direct hit from backward point as Hampshire chanced a single.

With Min Patel and James Tredwell again bowling frugally in tandem, the pressure really switched onto Hampshire and the asking rate grew to 43 from the last four overs.

Patel lured John McLean down the track with addition flight to give O’Brien a stumping then, two balls later, top-scorer Nic Pothas (31) slogged to deep mid-wicket to give Patel excellent figures of two for 20.

Khan put the result beyond doubt with two wickets in as many balls to finish with three for 11, then Hall polished the job off by yorking Chris Tremlett off the penultimate ball.

Yet it was Hall’s countryman Henderson who again took the man of the match honours, taking one for 18 to go with his excellent innings of 63 that helped turn the course of the game.