Denly and Northeast steer Kent to victory
21 May 2015
Gloucestershire's chances of a third successive Championship win gradually slipped away at the Bristol County Ground as Kent successfully chased 241 to win by 8 wickets.
Gloucestershire were unable to pressurise the visitors by adding to their overnight score, and although Kent were 35-2 at one stage, Joe Denly and Sam Northeast - sketchily at first but with increasing fluency later - put together an unbeaten 3rd wicket stand of 208 to take Kent to victory on the stroke of tea.
Hear coach Richard Dawson's thoughts on the match here...
Gloucestershire's ideal scenario would have been to at least add the 12 runs in eight overs that Kent's last wicket pair had done on Wednesday morning, taking the victory target past 250. Instead, Thomas' loosener was clipped off his legs by Matt Taylor straight to Daniel Bell-Drummond at square leg, leaving Kent to score 241 in 93 overs.
Gloucestershire needed some early encouragement, and Miles provided it in his first over, Chris Dent taking a comfortable catch at second slip to remove Bell-Drummond for three.
Miles did conceded one boundary to Denly, but the Kent opener's judgement on which deliveries to play saw him twice pull the bat away very late to avoid an edge. Left hander Nash also enjoyed some fortune against Taylor with one ball going to the fine leg boundary off the bottom of his bat.
Norwell had Nash in trouble as soon as he was introduced and he deserved the second breakthough, Roderick taking a one handed catch with almost casual ease. Kent still needed 206, and another wicket at that stage would have made Gloucestershire favourites.
Half chances were created - Taylor had a strangled lbw appeal against Denly, who also edged Norwell short of Dent at second slip - but Taylor in particular struggled with his line as Northeast tried to establish himself.
Miles and Payne brought back in double change 20 mins before lunch, but to no avail, and Kent reached lunch at 85-2.
Skipper Geraint Jones clearly saw Miles and Norwell as his greatest threat, so the pair were used in tandem at the the resumption, and Norwell continued to be out of luck with two boundaries coming from shots which on another day could have gone to hand.
The match had been typifed by wickets falling in bunches around a handful of big stands, and Denly and Northeast - with a few scares - took Kent towards victory with the match's most important partnership as batting slowly became easier.
They added their first 100 together in 30 overs, Denly bringing up his fifty of 111 balls with nine fours and Northeast gradually finding his form to reach his own half century with eight boundaries off 98 balls.
At that stage, enough runs were required that both men could mathematically have made hundreds but Denly disrupted the balance of the card with three sixes, one each straight off Dent and Noema-Barnett, and a third to mid wicket off Norwell.
The former Middlesex opener, now in his second spell at Kent, accelerated and took only 68 balls to go from 50 to 100. It was fitting that he drove the winning boundary off Matt Taylor, the Gloucestershire attack having been worn down in the Bristol sunshine.
