Kent 196-3 – trail by 186

KENT captain Rob Key and his predecessor David Fulton posted an opening stand worth 153 to put the county into a decent position on day two of their championship clash with Yorkshire at Canterbury.

It was the pair’s 16th century first wicket stand and moved them within four of Kent’s legendary opening partners Brian Luckhurst and Mike Denness in the county’s roll of honour.

In reply to Yorkshire’s respectable first innings of 382, Kent made a great fist of their response as Key and Fulton moved watchfully forward to reach three-figures inside 43 overs.

In near ideal batting conditions, the long-term partners used a safety first approach, setting out to bat for the last two sessions of Thursday’s play.

They looked set to achieve that until Key, with his score on 81 from 185 balls, flicked airily leg-side at a ball from Tim Bresnan and appeared stunned to be given out caught behind by umpire Roy Palmer to a catch claimed by keeper Simon Guy.

Only 30 runs later Fulton’s four-and-a-half hour vigil ended with his score on 75 when Guy snaffled another catch this time when Fulton attempted to cut a turning ball from spinner Richard Dawson.

Night watchman Simon Cook perished without scoring, leg before to a Darren Lehmann arm ball, but Martin van Jaarsveld and Matthew Walker saw the hosts through to stumps without any further alarms.

The start of the day belonged to former Yorkshire skipper Lehmann who, despite only adding 17 to his overnight, helped bat his side into such a position whereby they should not lose this game.

The winner of 27 baggy green caps, though many pundits are amazed he never collected more, Lehmann oozed sheer class in scoring 193 - including a century in boundaries - to help Yorkshire post an impressive 382 all out.

The 36-year-old from Gawler in South Australia featured in a record fifth wicket stand for the white rose county against Kent worth 229 in 71 overs with fellow country-man Craig White, who also happens to be his brother-in-law.

They beat Yorkshire’s previous best against Kent of 180 by Geoff Boycott and Kevin Sharp set at Tunbridge Wells 22 years ago but, half-an-hour into day two, Lehmann fell seven short of a double century when mistiming an attempted pull shot to pick out Rob Key at mid-on.

Kent’s relief was almost palpable as Lehman sidled off having taken his season’s average into three figures, his career aggregate against Kent to 1,001 and his season’s tally to date past 500 first-class runs.

With the little maestro gone, Kent worked their way through the Yorkshire middle order in relatively quick time picking up their last five wickets for the addition of only 48 runs.

Simon Cook added two to his first day tally to finish with four for 67 but it was Darren Stevens who proved the surprise package taking a career-best four for 36 with his military-medium off-cutters, including a burst of three for four that finished the innings off.

Afterwards, Stevens said: "I’ve tried to develop my bowling gradually down the years as another string to my bow, I guess it started with Daffy DeFreitas at Leicestershire and since I’ve been at Kent Min Patel and James Tredwell have really helped me.

"If the ball wasn’t swinging at Grace Road ‘Daffy’ used to tell me just to mess about with the seam, scramble it and change the seam position, I did that today and it started swinging for me.

"It was just a case of me playing the patience game, putting it up there to swing a bit and then hoping the odd one would hold its own. The one to Tim Bresnan maybe kept a bit low, but I’d like to think the others were genuine dismissals."

SCORECARD

Yorkshire won toss and bat

Yorkshire first innings:

M J Wood lbw b Kemp 11
J J Sayers c Kemp b Cook 1
A McGrath c Kemp b Cook
M J Lumb c O’Brien b Dexter 3
D S Lehmann c Key b Cook 193
C White b Stevens 79
T T Bresnan b Stevens 33
S M Guy c O’Brien b Cook 6
R K Dawson b Stevens 12
J M Gillespie not out 7
G J Kruis b Stevens 1
Extras 27

Total 382 all out after 127.3 overs

Fall of wicket: 1-6, 2-18, 3-26, 4-34, 5-263, 6-334, 7-342, 8-369, 9-378

Bowling: Joseph 26-5-86-0, Cook 27-8-67-4, Kemp 20-3-56-1, Dexter 17-2-55-1, Stevens 17.3-3-36-4, Ferley 14-3-42-0, Walker 6-1-17-0.

Kent first innings:

D P Fulton c Guy b Dawson 75
R W T Key c Guy b Bresnan 81
M van Jaarsveld not out 22BR>S J Cook lbw b Lehmann 0
M J Walker not out 5
Extras 13

Total 196 for three after 78 overs

Fall of wicket: 1-153, 2-183, 3-186

Bowling: Gillespie 16-6-27-0, Kruis 17-4-54-0, Bresnan 13-2-23-1, McGrath 12-3-25-0, Dawson 12-0-44-1, Lehmann 3-1-8-1, White 5-0-12-0.

Bonus points: Kent 3pts, Yorkshire 5pts.

* MARK PENNELL'S DAY THREE REPORT WILL APPEAR HERE AT CLOSE OF PLAY THIS EVENING.