Kent’s hopes of reaching the knock-out stages of the Royal London One-Day Cup were all but ended by rain at Derby on Wednesday.

The abandonment of the Group B match between Derbyshire and Kent at the Incora County Ground, Derby, left both teams chances in the balance with only two games remaining.

But Derbyshire have also been deducted two points for all-rounder Mattie McKiernan using a bat which failed a gauge test in the group game against Hampshire at Derby last Friday.

McKiernan was charged and accepted a breach of ECB Directives 3.2 and 3.3 after he used a bat which failed the test during and after the match due to excessive tape being applied.

In a statement the club said: “An Adjudicator of the Cricket Discipline Commission considered McKiernan’s clean record and apology and accepted that it was an unintentional breach of the ECB Directives.

“Adjudicating, Ricky Needham decided that the offence, while committed unintentionally, must be dealt with on a strict liability basis, in that it is entirely the responsibility of a cricketer to ensure that the equipment being used conforms to the laws of the game.”

It leaves Derbyshire on three points with a home game against Yorkshire at Chesterfield on Sunday and a trip to Nothampton on Tuesday to come.

Even before the penalty was announced, Derbyshire and Kent needed a win but heavy rain throughout Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning left the outfield saturated and the game was called-off after a third inspection at 2.15pm.

Kent coach Simon Cook said: “You want to try and carry on momentum so it’s very frustrating.

“But when you walk out there you can see the water coming up underneath your feet. It’s an unusual situation where we’ve had that extremely dry weather for the last month, so the water is just sitting in that top inch of turf.

“We’re in a position where we need results to go our way and we’ve got to win the next two home games at Canterbury. We’ll be looking forward to Yorkshire and Lancashire.”

Derbyshire fast bowler Nick Potts admitted: “We thought it was a game we could attack and be aggressive in so it’s disappointing as a squad that we can’t do that.

“We have been going with the mentality that every game is a final and we need to take two points from each one but there’s still a chance to put in two strong performances.”