Friends Provident Trophy Final

Kent Spitfires v Essex Eagles

Kent suffered defeat for the seventh successive time in a Lord’s showpiece and cup final heartbreak for the second occasion this summer when Essex secured their five-wicket win in sunny St John’s Wood with seven balls to spare.

Playing their first knock-out final in 11 years, Spitfires failed to conquer their nerves or master their individual skills. They failed to score enough runs, bowled too many wides (11) and no balls (4) and, near the death, missed a run out and dropped a potentially crucial catch.

While most things went wrong for Kent, Essex and Grant Flower, with an unbeaten 70, showed their mettle to win their first knock-out title for a decade as they successfully chased down Kent’s modest target of 214 all out at an asking rate of 4.28 an over.

After a scrappy start to their stint in the field, blighted by wides and no balls, Kent’s new ball pairing of Azhar Mahmood and Yasir Arafat eventually started to ask questions of the Essex top-order.

Mahmood, initially at the Nursery End, trapped Mark Pettini (10) leg before as he worked around a straight ball then, after switching ends, he pegged back Jason Gallian’s leg stump for 28 off an inside edge when driving.

McLaren continued the trend by beating No3 Ravi Bopara with a belter and also finding Alastair Cook’s outside edge, only for the ball to go through the gap between second and fourth slips.

In searching for extra pace though McLaren lost his line and was also guilty of conceding a brace of wides.

Having been taken off after one over that cost seven, Robbie Joseph was switched to the Pavilion End to strike with his second ball by trapping Ravi Bopara (7) leg before as the England man played late on an 86mph delivery.

Yet it was a Joseph slower ball, the first delivery of his next over, which accounted for England opener Cook who played hopelessly early to spoon a catch to Darren Stevens at cover to make it 93-4.

Through Grant Flower and James Foster, Essex chipped away at the total to reduce the asking rate to 99 from the last 20 overs.

After a stand worth 68 in 16 overs, Joseph was re-introduced to get Kent a much-needed wicket by having Foster caught behind off a lifting leg-cutter.

Hear more from Robbie Joseph about his bowling performance by clicking the link at the top of the page

Essex needed 50 from the last 10 overs with five wickets and, with Grant Flower well set with a 73-ball half-century and with Joseph bowled out having taken 3-40 in his 10, Eagles were firm favourites.

Even more so when Stevens downed a difficult chance at long leg of Ryan ten Doeschate when on eight, and the odds swung their way even further when Yasir Arafat, following through off his own bowling, missed with an under-arm throw that would have run ten Doeschate out for 15.

As it was, ten Doeschate survived to see Flower hit the winning boundary off Mahmood’s penultimate over of the day.

Earlier, Kent's lengthy batting order proved essential as No8 McLaren top-scored with 63 and ‘Mr Reliable’ Martin van Jaarsveld chipped in with 58 as Spitfires posted 214.

Kent were in deep peril of committing the cardinal sin of not batting out their 50 overs in sliding to 94-5 just after the halfway stage of their innings, but van Jaarsveld and McLaren, with his first 50 in the competition, gave their attack something to 'bowl at' and a total they might defend on a tricky, seamer-friendly pitch.

Openers Rob Key and Joe Denly were given a stern examination at the start of the innings as former Kent seamer David Masters, at the Nursery End, then all-rounder Graham Napier, at the Pavilion End, got the ball to nip around off the seam.

Denly danced down the pitch to clip two fours,forcing Essex keeper James Foster to stand up to the stumps.

The keeper’s move paid dividends for Masters and Foster as, in the fifth over, Key (7) pushed at an away-swinger to be given caught behind, even though the noise umpire Nigel Llong probably heard was probably Key's bat clipping his pad.

Denly, having hit two boundaries in his 11, drove at an in-swinger from Graham Napier that crept through the gate to peg back the right-hander's middle stump.

That brought together South Africans van Jaarsveld and Justin Kemp - men in the middle of contrasting runs of form.

Van Jaarsveld scored four centuries and 602 runs in total at an average of 120.40 on Kent's run through to the final while Kemp, though he scored 208 runs at an average of 40 earlier in the campaign, appears hopelessly out of form and seemingly unable to buy a run.

Both survived early lbw appeals and Kemp, in particular, looked ill it at ease with his technique. He at least pushed a couple of singles to keep the board ticking over, but pickings were hard to come by after a spell of 6-1-11-1 by Napier.

Kemp hit his first boundary in the 16th over when he punched a good-length ball from Wright to the ropes at mid-on but, in the next over, the tall right-hander went for 11 when dragging a ball from Masters onto off stump.

Spitfires' misery deepened when Stevens swished at a wide one from Wright and edged through to Foster to go for a six-ball duck and make it 59-4 after 18 overs.

Masters' unbroken spell ended with figures of 10-2-34-2 and he was replaced at the Nursery End by Bopara whose opening two overs cost 15 runs, forcing Essex skipper Pettini into the introduction of Danish Kaneria to block Kent's brief flurry of boundaries.

Kaneria put a brake on the run-rate and also removed Jones (19) leg-before to a top-spinner that raced onto him and hit the pad before the bat, leaving umpire Llong with an easier leg before decision to make.

Kaneria also struck in his next over when Azhar Mahmood foolishly took the option of hitting against the spin and, in aiming to slog over mid-wicket, miscued to Grant Flower at long-off.

After battling past 50 for the seventh time in this season's Trophy competition, van Jaarsveld's stay ended after 75 balls for 58 when, in aiming to pull against Wright, the ball came high off the bat blade to mid-on where Cook took an excellent over-head catch running back that made it 138-7.

Knowing the side needed to bat out their overs, McLaren and Yasir Arafat played sensible cricket, pushing the ball around for ones and twos to keep the board ticking at the rate of five or six an over.

McLaren became the second man to reach 50 when he clubbed four over mid-on against Bopara to pass the milestone from 60 balls and with three fours.

Their stand, worth 66 in 11 overs, ended when Arafat (27) walked across his stumps aiming to leg and missed out to be bowled by Bopara. It was easily the highest partnership of the innings.

In the penultimate over, James Tredwell ran himself out without facing and the innings ended when McLaren swung and missed Bopara's last ball to go for 63, his competition best.