Kent were battling hard to save their Division One status after being forced to follow on by Hampshire, on a rain-affected third day in the Vitality County Championship at Canterbury.

The hosts could be relegated by the end of this round of fixtures, but they were 70 without loss in their second innings, still 126 behind, with Tawanda Muyeye unbeaten on 46 and Ben Compton 24 not out.

Earlier Kyle Abbott took five for 46 as Kent were dismissed for 207 in their first innings, Compton their highest scorer with 51.

Torrential rain fell during an already truncated evening session and play was eventually abandoned for the day at 5.26pm.

Kent began day three on 64 for five, still 339 runs behind Hampshire’s first innings score of 403, but Compton and Harry Finch survived for the first 90 minutes of an extended morning session, aided by some sub-optimal slip fielding.

Toby Albert dropped Compton twice, on 24 and 32, the first when he couldn’t hang on to a difficult slip catch off Abbott, the second a more routine head-high chance offered by James Fuller.

Albert finally snared Compton at the third attempt when Abbott found his edge with the first delivery after he’d switched to the Nackington Road End.

In his next over Abbott had Finch caught behind for 44, before Liam Dawson bowled Charlie Stobo for 10.

Matt Parkinson was out soon after lunch, caught behind off Brad Wheal for four, but the last wicket pair of George Garrett and Jas Singh proved a nuisance, particularly after James Vince dropped the former when he was on 17, again in the slips.

Singh passed his previous best first class score of 14, before he was removed by the new ball, lbw to Abbas for 1, leaving his partner stranded on 27.

With 45 overs remaining in the day Hampshire immediately announced they were enforcing the follow on, but a whiff of farce arrived when Tawanda Muyeye hit the penultimate ball before tea for a six into the gardens on the Old Dover Road side of the ground.

Hampshire were unhappy with the replacement and four of their fielders, the twelfth man and a coach climbed awkwardly over the fence to look for the original, finally finding it after seven minutes.

Shortly after the resumption the importance of those seven minutes was magnified when the rain arrived and a total of nine overs were lost.

When play resumed at 5.05pm it was already raining again, the ground staff were already holding the covers and Compton faced down three balls from Abbas before they gave up and went off again.

Hampshire’s Kyle Abbott said: (on getting five wickets in his 100th game for Hampshire. “It was a nice milestone to get and it’s been an enjoyable week so far. Looking back over those games, I started 10 years ago and I’ve had a great time here. To cap it off with five wickets was really nice, as it was to put Hampshire in a good position and make Kent follow on.

(On taking his 26th five-wicket haul for Hampshire) “I think the older you get these records start to creep up o you, which is nice, but as I said, I’ve enjoyed my time here over the years and I’ve felt that I can express myself, lead this attack from the front and just do what I do. I’ve kept it very simple over the years and I’ve found a method taht’s worked and I’ve stuck to it and believed in it, so it’s great to see the rewards over a long period of time.

“I had a quite a good winter, I did struggle last year after a bit of knee surgery, I just didn’t feel that I was quite back up to speed. I felt well short of a gallop to say the least but I went away in the winter and reflected on that and tried to prepare myself as best as I could.

“Whatever I did it worked, I do feel better, I feel better as the day goes on, the spells later in the day feel a lot better than the ones in the morning, which I suppose is a good sign – or a bad one that the body is now taking a whole day to warm up! I don’t know which one it is, but yes, I certainly fell like I’ve been in a pretty good rhythm, it’s probably some of the best I’ve bowled since I’ve been at Hampshire.

“It’s always the hard part to get the top order, they’ve got some really good batters up there, but we knew once we cracked through it we could stuck into the tail.

“To be honest we knew what we were going get when we came here with the pitch, it has the reputation of getting slower The lights and the cloud cover over the first two days certainly helped, it kept the pace in the pitch and kept the ball nipping around, but yeah, we knew we had to make them follow on.

“There’s no real target in sight for them now, it’s just batting time. We felt like we took away all hope of any victory for them but in the same breath we’ve put ourselves in the field for two days which we knew we had to do. That’s what good teams do, they spend lots of time trying to get 20 wickets.”

Kent’s George Garrett said: “I think it’s just a case of showing a bit of fight, obviously the wicket’s probably got a bit better for batting on compared to day one so I think, especially the guys at the bottom, we tried to put a lot of value on our wickets and make it difficult for Hampshire. We showed a bit of fight today.

“It was good to bat with Jas and I think both of us have worked pretty hard at our batting, I think that’s the way the game’s going, you saw in the Hampshire innings the way their tail really wagged . It really hurt us so I suppose taking responsibility with the bat at 11 is important, we can get our averages up and contribute to 20s, 30s and 40s across the season that can push you into better positions in the game.

“Obviously Ben and Finchy batted nicely this morning and it’s a shame someone couldn’t go and get a big one, that’s something that’s been lacking a bit in the first innings of games all season but hopefully they can put it right tomorrow.

“The batters have just got to bat long and bat big. If Tawanda wasn’t happy with the decision he got in the first innings it looks like hes’s really got the bit between his teeth. He’s ready and poised to go big and hopefully the ads can bat around him. It’s been a frustrating year different reasons so if there’s a chance for a batter to go and get a big score and finish he season on a high.”