Kent are staying in Division One of the LV= Insurance County Championship, after a day of unmitigated, stomach-churning drama at Canterbury.

They drew their game with Lancashire and then faced an almost unbearable 80-minute wait for news from Trent Bridge, where a Middlesex win would have been enough to relegate them.

Lancashire’s Luke Wells made 117 and Keaton Jennings 74, but after collapsing from 194 for nought to 258 for seven, Josh Bohannon and Tom Bailey batted them to safety, making 68 not out and 78 respectively.

Jack Leaning and Aron Nijjar took three wickets apiece, but Kent’s failure to finish their opponents off left their supporters sweating on news from Nottingham. The visitors closed on 390 for eight, a lead of 223.

Fans and staff, at least those who could stand to watch, duly crowded round laptops and iphones. Kent captain Jack Leaning prowled the balcony, and Director of Cricket Paul Downton stood grinning with the sheer tension of it all.

Every run was cheered, every wicket felt like a depth charge and when Nottinghamshire hit the winning runs a roar that may well have been audible at Trent Bridge was emitted.

The consensus at the start of the day was the Kent would probably be ok, but the word “probably” ended up doing some very heavy lifting.

With seven bonus points in the bank Kent knew they’d be safe if they could match Middlesex’s result against Nottinghamshire, but for the first hour things looked grim, in more than one sense.

Play began under leaden skies, but the seamers made no impact.

Lancashire resumed on 126 without loss and had levelled the scores within 13 overs.

Wells carved Jack Leaning through point for the four that racked up his 24th first-class hundred but eventually fell when he edged the same bowler to Daniel Bell-Drummond at slip.

From 194 for nought, Lancashire lost five wickets for 32 runs.

Jennings went in almost identical fashion in Leaning’s next over and Steven Croft should have been out to the next ball but he was dropped by Tawanda Muyeye at short leg.

George Bell flashed at Aron Nijjar and was caught behind for one.

George Balderson drove Leaning to Compton at point and also went for one and a session that had started so demoralisingly ended on a high when Nijjar had Croft caught by Bell-Drummond, leaving Lancashire on 226 for five at lunch.

Matthew Hurst was then out for a duck in the third over after the resumption, skying Yuzvendra Chahal to Nathan Gilchrist at mid-off.

Just as news of Middlesex’s gutsy declaration filtered through, Chahal switched to the Pavilion End and duped Tom Hartley into a rash shot that was taken by Compton at mid-off for 18.

At that point the lead was under 100 and a Kent win at least looked possible but Bohannon and Bailey batted through till tea, by which time Lancashire were 344 for seven and there were only 27 overs left. Both batters were dropped, the former by Harry Finch off Joey Evison, the latter when he offered Chahal a return catch.

These lapses effectively finished off any lingering chance of a run chase and Kent’s fate was out of their hands. Bell-Drummond couldn’t cling on when Bohannon edged Leaning but by then almost everyone in ground was either watching the stream from Trent Bridge, nervously following the score on their phone or, in some cases, praying.

Bailey was caught by Gilchrist off Nijjar just after he’d passed his highest first-class score of 77 and Tawanda Muyeye came on to bowl for the first time this season and Ben Compton for the first time ever as both sides went through the motions before shaking hands and heading off to watch the nearest available stream.

It wasn’t an easy watch, but after nearly 90 minutes of soaring blood-pressure and heart palpitations deliverance came and a wave of relief engulfed the St. Lawrence.

Kent’s Matthew Walker: “It wasn’t the greatest two hours of our lives, watching that unfold. It’s out of your control, it’s completely out of your hands and it’s the worst part of the job. There’s nothing you can do about it apart from sit and watch and keep your fingers crossed.

“We gave it a real good go this week. We thought we’d have to win this game, or we thought we’d have to win one of the last three games and as it turned out we haven’t had to win any of them, but we’ve had two really good performances which have given us enough points to get our noses ahead going into this week.

“Fair play to Middlesex. They deserve a lot of credit and they gave it a real good go. They may have deserved a bit better but I was glad of that back end resistance from Notts. We saw it against us a couple of weeks ago from Brett Hutton and it was painful at the time.

“Relief is the overwhelming emotion I suppose. It’s hard to be too jubilant. We’ve just hung on and stayed up, but from where we were a few weeks ago, that was the job to do and we’ve done it. We can go away now, have some time off, and reflect on the season as we usually do. We’ve got Division One Cricket next year.

“You do everything you can and that was our message this week. You try and keep eyes of that game (Middx v Notts). I know it’s hard but the focus was totally on our game. We knew just leading into tea that it was going to be really difficult to win this game. That partnership just became too many really and we certainly didn’t want to lose the game if we’d had a horrible little run chase like we did a few weeks ago when we nearly blew it (against Notts). And then all you can do is just hope!

“Of course everyone was very nervous in the dressing room. At tea Notts looked like they were sailing with nine wickets left and needed just over 100 but you just know that last day drama happened last year up at Edgbaston and you never know until that last ball is bowled. It doesn’t matter how they did it, they managed to get it across the line and we’ve very thankful for that.”

Kent’s Jack Leaning said: “I couldn’t really bring myself to watch it. (The Middlesex game). I hate the unknown, I can deal with the good and the bad but that bit in between is pretty shambolic. I hate it!

“Luckily Notts did us a favour, but I thought we did ourselves a few favours over those last three games to pick up the points that we needed and ultimately we kept ourselves up. It’s not just Notts today, it’s us over the course of the season.

“Yes we don’t want to be fighting at the bottom of the table, but we’re in Division One and we’ve got the opportunity to start afresh and push ourselves up the table.”

(Was it agony for the players?) “Yes, but that what makes sport so special. If it was cut and dry and the best teams always won and the worst teams always lost no one would ever watch it. Championship cricket has really showed that this week. There’s been results you wouldn’t expect and results that have caused a great deal of drama in various different dressing rooms around the country.

“As a team we pride ourselves in sticking together in the tough times and hopefully enjoy the good times when they come. We’ve won a couple of bits of silverware in the last two years. We didn’t quite achieve our goals in white ball cricket this year but we stayed up and achieved our goal in red ball cricket this year. Hopefully next year will be a little bit different.

“If anyone knows why we suddenly get the results in September, I will happily sit down and have a coffee with them. Hopefully I’ll get the job full time for next year. I’ve made it quite clear to take it on if that’s what the club wants, but if it is someone else I’ll be the first in line to help the new man take things forward.”

Lancashire’s Tom Bailey said: “I didn’t want to bowl again to be honest! Especially on a pitch like that. Me and Bosh got our heads down and just soaked it all up really. For us the game didn’t really mater, but I know the way that Kent were seeing things with the Middlesex v Notts game looking like it was going to be a draw it was a bit of a weird way to end the season, but it is what it is.

“There wasn’t too much in the wicket so I was happy just to soak the pressure up and no have to bowl again.

“It was my highest first class score by one run and I’ve done that a few times this year so I’ve got to buy the boys another round of drinks. A hundred would have been nice but I said to the boys afterwards I’d rather do it when there’s something on the line and hopefully that day will come at some point.”