KENT’S prolonged battle to avoid championship relegation for the first time moves to the South Coast from Tuesday where they take on title chasing Hampshire in a vital LV Championship game.

Rob Key’s side travel to the Rose Bowl to face Shane Warne’s third-placed side and looking for a third win of the season to lift themselves out of the bottom two relegation spots.

They make the trip occupying eighth place in the first division table, nine points short of catching Warwickshire with a game in hand.

Key will hope influential all-rounder Ryan McLaren will pass a late fitness test on the fractured right thumb that forced him to miss Kent’s last three one-day matches – the first games the South African has missed in his career through injury.

With Warne fit again and back in the Hampshire ranks, injury-hit Kent face an incredibly tough task in beating a home side who still harbour outside chances of overtaking leaders Sussex.

But a high-scoring draw with maximum batting and bonus points would suit Key’s men down to the ground and still be enough to leapfrog Warwickshire, who travel to Old Trafford to take on Lancashire in their final game of the campaign.