Skipper James Tredwell was disappointed as the Spitfires suffered their second home Friends Life t20 defeat inside 48 hours as they fell to a 31-run defeat against Surrey at Canterbury on Sunday afternoon.

Despite a t20-best 61 from Sam Northeast and a trademark blast of 30 from Darren Stevens, seven wickets fell for the addition of 46 runs in the final nine overs as Kent lost momentum when in a good position for the second time in as many games.

Surrey had made a quick start and raced to 66-0 from seven overs and despite Matt Coles returning to form with 2-20, Steven Davies carried his bat for a fine unbeaten 95 as the visitors posted 176-3 from 20 overs.

Tredwell revealed: “I think we came off half-way reasonably happy. We’d have rather they had 130, but on that wicket with the short boundary on one side, I think we would have taken 170, certainly after their start.

“We’re just disappointed we lost a cluster of wickets in the middle which cost us quite dear.”

On Friday, Vernon Philander made a stunning debut but the Spitfires somehow lost a rain-shortened t20 clash with Middlesex by four wickets at The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence.

The Panthers won the toss and put Kent in to bat, with the hosts making 129-5 from 15 overs with Sam Billings and Stevens scoring 26 apiece.

Philander made an immediate impact with the ball with a superb wicket-maiden to open the innings and then took three more in his next two overs, conceding just eight runs in total, six of them in one blow from Dawid Malan, to finish with 4-8.

Kent were on-top with Middesex 35-4 after six overs and still looked favourites with three overs remaining with the visitors needing 36 to win, but 20-year-old keeper Adam Rossington (41 not out) saw his side over the line as Coles went for 28 from 10 balls and Middlesex got home with two balls to spare.

Tredwell added: “We’ve shown things in both games, areas we’ve done pretty well. On Friday to post the score we did in a shortened game, we put ourselves in a position where we should have won the game.

“Equally on Sunday we bowled and fielded pretty well, again had a pretty good start and felt in a pretty good place half-way through the batting innings. But t20 is a game of very small margins, one day if you don’t quite get it right you come out on the wrong side.

“We’ll go into the next few days, practice hard, talk about it, come out on Friday and try to turn it around.”