KENT’S opening totesport League game of the summer was abandoned through rain as their first trip to Derbyshire in five years ended in frustration.

Spitfires were only nine without loss and barely 20 minutes into their reply when persistent drizzle drove them from the field as they set about chasing the host’s 45-over total of 197 for eight.

England players Rob Key and Geraint Jones had played themselves in for the run chase ahead and looked untroubled until rain ruined their reply.

Derbyshire’s score had been based around a bright innings from Jonathan Moss and a stubborn 46 from home skipper Luke Sutton.

Australian eight-hander Moss top-scored in the Phantoms’ innings, hitting a fluent 79 from only 81-balls and with seven fours.

The mop-topped Victorian, who missed three weeks of last season with a displaced vertebra in the neck, became a proverbial pain in one as far as Kent’s bowlers were concerned.

He took a particular shine to Simon Cook in his opening over of the day and his first bowl in anger since joining Kent from Middlesex.

Cook short-pitched three times to be flat-batted through to the cover boundary ropes then, in over-compensating, Cook served up a half-volley that Moss drove through mid-off to take 18 off the over.

To his credit, Cook made an admirable recovery thereafter sending down his nine overs for 42 runs.

Martin Saggers, in his first stint since going down with a knee injury, bowled with decent pace and beat the bat far more than his tally of one for 33 reveals.

He did trap Derbyshire’s most stylish batsman, however, trapping the elegant Hassan Adnan leg before for four with one that nipped in off the seam to the right-hander.

As with the pre-season games, Kent’s most threatening bowler was again Amjad Khan who, apart from the occasional stray leg-side wide, showed good control to claim two for 32 sporting a new, much sleeker hair cut.

The mid-innings control came through the triumvirate of Rob Ferley, Matt Dennington and Darren Stevens.

Derbyshire struggled to get Ferley’s flighted left-armers off the square and he thoroughly deserved his two for 35 return, while Stevens chipped in with the wicket of Luke Sutton to a miscued drive to mid-off.

After a tight bowling display and some athletic fielding, particularly from Matt Walker who ran out Ant Botha and Ben Spendlove, Spitfires would have expected to chalk up their first win in totesport League Division 2.

But at 4.38pm and after only five overs the rain arrived and that was that, two points apiece.