Kent Spitfires v Leicestershire Foxes

Spitfires only day-night game of the summer ended in controversial farce at St Lawrence on Tuesday night when bad light led to the abandonment of the game because the floodlights could not be used.

Strong winds meant the portable floodlights on retractable pylons could not be extended to their full working height because of health and safety laws.

When umpires Ian Gould and Richard Illingworth took the players from the field at 8.10pm Leicestershire had reached only 23-2 after six overs and were already way behind on the Duckworth/Lewis rate.

Kent had taken two wickets, Jacques du Toit (12) miscued an Azhar Mahmood slower ball to mid-on then in near darkness, Boeta Dippenaar (1) went leg-before when trying to pull a good length ball from Robbie Joseph.

Eight minutes later the umpires conferred and, much to the annoyance of a 3,000 crowd, took the players off the field and, despite hopes the wind might drop enabling the lights to go up, never came back.

The game was therefore declared abandoned, both sides were awarded a point apiece and the supports were again left to go home short changed.

In decent light earlier Spitfires' skipper Rob Key provided the foundations with a top-score of 62 while Ryan McLaren provided the fireworks with a 16-ball cameo of 34 as Kent reached 226-7.

On a difficult pitch for stroke-making, Kent's batsmen all had to use some common sense to get their run rate up to 5.65 an over.

Opening bat Joe Denly gave his side a decent start after they elected to bat first with two boundaries in the first over of the match, but a slow and two-paced pitch was soon causing the home batsmen a few headaches.

Denly had reached 12 when he pushed at a ball from Dillon du Preez to be given caught behind by Paul Nixon though the suggestion was from Denly's shake of the head that he had hit pad with bat and not the ball.

Martin van Jaarsveld cracked three boundaries in another over from du Preez to move to 13 before the bowler got one to hold its line up the Nackington Road slope and brush the outside edge through to former Kent keeper Nixon.

No3 Justin Kemp, playing his first game in over a week after back spasms, looked completely out of form in limping to six before he played outside a Garnett Kruger off cutter that nipped through the gate to clip off stump.

Skipper Key, after getting off the mark with a six over mid-wicket, scored only two boundaries in the first hour but he realised the need for him to anchor the innings.

He and Darren Stevens added 70 in 71 balls for the fourth wicket with Stevens adding 36 from 32 balls for his part.

He swept two sixes off left-arm spinner Claude Henderson but, in trying to repeat the shot, skied high to Nixon.

The former England ODI gloveman then took his fourth catch when Azhar Mahmood (20) again top-edged a pull shot against du Preez to fine leg where Nixon ran back to take a fourth catch, this one a fine one on the run.

Key marched on to a sensible 75-ball 50 but, with his score on 62, he was run out by Kruger when backing up to a drive by Geraint Jones. His runs came off 93 balls; a measure of how tricky batting was on this untrustworthy surface.

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