Kent captain Rob Key has told KSN of his delight that the side go to the final game of the season with a chance of being promoted.

Victory over County Championship Second Division leaders Derbyshire at Canterbury on Friday by 222 runs, sees Kent go into their final game of this campaign, away to Glamorgan starting on Tuesday, sitting third in the table with the top two to be promoted.

However, the win over Derbyshire has pulled Kent to within just six points of the leaders and crucially they are just five points behind second placed Yorkshire.

With all to play for in this final round of games, it was important that Kent got the win at the St Lawrence Ground over the past week and it was nail-biting stuff for those watching on with the home side winning with less than an hout left in the game.

Speaking exclusively to KSN after the game, Key spoke of his delight at having pulled off the win against a resolute Derbyshire side that were intent on batting out the final day for the draw:

“It was a big game, but people stood up and played their part in what was bloody hard work. Derbyshire gave us nothing, dug bunkers and stayed in there. Credit to them, they made it hard work on a deck where you thought it was going to be a fair bit quicker than it was.”

“We probably didn’t realise they were going to defend quite as much, especially at the start. Usman Khawaja is a very good player and it turned out that we had to prise out every wicket. No one took their hands outside where they should have been and had a go at anything, with the exception of Groenewald for a small part.”

“Every single one of the wickets we got came from a decent ball. I don’t think any of their batsmen got out to a poor delivery.”

Going into the final day needing nine wickets and with a lead of almost 400 gave Key the luxury of having men around the bat throughout the day.

The Kent skipper operated with five slips at times, whilst keeping men all around the bat for the spin of James Tredwell and Brendan Nash, but he admitted it doesn’t always pay dividends having so many men in catching positions:

“The problem with having so many in close it becomes apparent what you are doing, so sometimes you have to think outside the box a little bit with different fields.”

“Stevo’s (Darren Stevens) spell was the difference as he got some good movement with the sixty over old ball.”

It was a game where the whole team contributed in way or another with Sam Northeast hitting 165 in the second innings, Geraint Jones top scoring with eighty in the first innings, despite batting with an upset stomach, Mark Davies taking 5 for 27 in Derbyshire’s first innings with Darren Stevens claiming 4 for 37 in the second innings.

With everyone having played their part, Key was pleased his whole team had been involved in the win:

“It was probably one of those wickets where it was probably best to bowl on the first day, then it became slow and low and some nicks weren’t carrying. It was one of those games where you needed everyone to chip in, because no one was going to run through them on the last day and get loads of wickets.”

Some stiff resistance from the Derbyshire batting line up made it hard for Kent to secure the win and Key admitted thoughts did turn to the game against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl were his side were unable to bowl the home side out on the final day:

“When you have had a few near misses, you start thinking that a little bit and you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. In the last couple of games we have turned that around and hopefully that puts us in a good place for next week.”

With Kent to play Glamorgan in Cardiff, Derbyshire to play host to Hampshire and Yorkshire set to face Essex at Chelmsford. Key believes it could be any two of the three sides that get promoted to Division One:

“I think it’s almost even money. It’s going to be interesting what teams these sides are going to put out. At this stage of the year you can start resting people with Hampshire having a big game coming up, but we are pretty happy with where we are at and it will be a big trip to Cardiff.”

“It will be nice if we don’t get a washout, but they’ve had a lot of rain down there this year and hopefully we get enough cricket to get on the right side of it.”