da premier bet： By the end of the second day in this County Championship match atCanterbury, the scoreboard shows that Kent trails Derbyshire by as few as216 runs with six first innings wickets still at its disposal
Staff and agencies29-Jul-2000By the end of the second day in this County Championship match atCanterbury, the scoreboard shows that Kent trails Derbyshire by as few as216 runs with six first innings wickets still at its disposal. Happily forthe visitors, though, it fails to express how admirably they have fought toseize a definitive upper hand by the game’s halfway point.With their ranks as stretched as they are for this battle, the visitorswill undoubtedly derive particular pleasure from their effort inextendingtheir first innings tally to a final mark of 279 upon the match’sresumption today. Notwithstanding the notion that only four of theirplayers ventured past a score of 13, this was an innings built not onlyaround steady accumulation but also collective hard work, a quality whichhas generally eluded the team this season. By its completion, the onlyhint of a sour note to emerge was that, in taking more than one and a halfdays to get there, they seemed to have limited their chances of gaining themass of points they need from this fixture to set about the task ofaverting Division One relegation.For batting highlights, much of the responsibility was left to MatthewDowman. His 77, an innings which stands out as his most encouraging in asummer in which he has so far struggled to adjust to the demands of playingfor a new county, featured an array of well composed drives. While his ownunflinching patience tested that of the spectators, Simon Lacey (41) alsoproved a handy foil, sharing with the dogged Dowman in a valuable stand of68 for the seventh wicket.To then make matters more frustrating for the local crowd, they were forcedto watch on helplessly as their team was brilliantly undone by an exemplaryspell of seam bowling from Kevin Dean (4/17). It was Dean’s influencewhich took the edge off Kent’s reply and laid the platform for his team toassume almost complete command of of proceedings. On the road to recoveryafter a string of back and hip injuries, the left armer took a little timeto warm to the task but, on finding his rhythm, produced a devastating tenover spell to dispense with David Fulton (16), Rahul Dravid (2), Ed Smith(2) and Matthew Walker (0) in eerily quick succession.