KENT crashed out of this year’s Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy after suffering a five-wicket quarter final defeat to Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

This was a tale of two skippers in the second city as Warwickshire captain Nick Knight led his side to victory with an excellent, unbeaten 112 while Kent counterpart David Fulton watched from the sidelines.

Suffering poor form in four and one-day cricket, Fulton bowed to the peer pressure of his senior players and effectively fell on his sword by making himself unavailable for the tie.

With his vice captain Matthew Walker at the helm, Spitfires won the toss and batted first on a slightly unpredictable pitch that batsmen from both sides never truly felt ‘in’ on.

Though their 50-over total of 259 for six was workmanlike, it was never truly enough to test Knight, the prince of limited overs cricket, who steered his team home with 23 balls to spare by scoring his sixth century in this competition.

Knight featured in stands of 47 with Neil Carter (26), 65 with Jim Troughton (27) and 59 with former Kent all-rounder Alex Loudon (29) and in the process scored his 27th limited overs’ century from 116-balls and with 12 fours.

Passing 12,000 limited overs runs in the process, he paced their reply so exquisitely that even when Justin Kemp snatched the wickets of Carter and Bell in successive overs, then later Troughton, there seemed little or no pressure on the home run rate.

An athletic diving stop from on the deep mid-wicket ropes followed by Simon Cook’s throw accounted for Jonathan Trott to a run out, then Loudon’s loose drive gave Hall a wicket in his second spell.

But the reality had already hit home; Kent had not made enough runs and man-of-the-match Knight and his Warwickshire faithful knew it.

To rub salt in the wounds, Trevor Penney then marched in to clatter 50 from 43 runs, leaving Knight to crack the winning boundary.

Earlier, Kent had looked on course for many more once their one-day openers Rob Key and Hall posted 120 in 26 overs, with each scoring half-centuries.

Hall made the early running by taking four fours from Dougie Brown’s first over of the match, while at the other end Key made a sticky start taking eight balls to get off the mark with a thick edge to third man.

They posted 50 in 13 overs to which Key contributed 12, but as the stand developed so Key’s confidence blossomed on what was proving a difficult, two-paced pitch.

Hall was first to his half-century in the 22nd over from 69 balls and Key dashed two from the very next ball to raise the Kent 100, before reaching his own 50 five balls later with eight fours and from 67 deliveries.

With Ashley Giles and Loudon bowling in tandem the Kent openers were clearly aware that the overs were slipping away and that time had come for riskier shot-making.

Sadly they duly committed the one-day cardinal sin of losing both their well-set batsmen in the space of two overs.

Key (53) edged an attempted sweep onto his pad for Tony Frost to take a looping catch down the leg side then Hall (62) attempted to run down a Loudon arm-ball only to edge to the keeper.

Walker and Martin van Jaarsveld took Kent through to 150 but, with only 15 overs remaining, the South African holed out at deep mid-wicket to gift Loudon the second wicket of his two for 37 return.

The run rate spurted, albeit temporarily, with a fourth wicket stand worth 51 in seven overs between Walker and Darren Stevens.

Walker was the third Spitfires batsman to reach 50 but easily the fastest from 43 balls and with three fours and a couple of sixes, while Stevens chipped in with 36 from 27 balls.

Both fell in the last 10 overs when trying to press on, Walker (51) reverse sweeping to Ashley Giles and Stevens leg before to a Carter slower ball.

Carberry’s inclusion instead of Fulton backfired somewhat as he added a painful five from 21 balls faced, all of which ensured the last 10 overs of the innings reaped only 56 runs.

Kemp again struggled to put bat to ball, but at least Geraint Jones, in a rare non-international appearance and inexplicably batting later for Kent than he would for England, sliced a six and four over backward point in the penultimate over.

It took the visitors beyond 250 but it was all too little too late and Kent pulled up at least 20 short of a defendable target.

Kent: Hall, Key, van Jaarsveld, Walker, Stevens, Kemp, Carberry, Jones, Ferley, Cook, Saggers.