Kent skipper Sam Northeast felt his side should have beaten Hampshire, after suffering their first defeat of the season at The Ageas Bowl on Thursday night.
Chasing 159 to win in their 20 overs, Kent were bowled out for 149 with three balls to spare in their second NatWest T20 Blast game of the season. Opening pair Daniel Bell-Drummond and Joe Denly had given the Spitfires the perfect platform in their chase, adding an unbeaten 75 together inside the first 10 overs, before the fall of regular wickets in the second half of the innings ended in a nine-run defeat for the visitors.
Spin bowlers Shahid Afridi (3/33) and Liam Dawson (1/27) bowled vital spells for the home side in the middle overs, restricting the run rate and leaving boundaries at a premium for Kent. West Indies T20 captain Darren Sammy, making his debut for Hampshire, took 2/20 from three overs, picking up the big wickets of Darren Stevens and Alex Blake in consecutive balls.
“I think it’s a game we should’ve won”, Northeast told KSN when we caught up with him at the ground after the game.
“After 10 overs, we looked in a really strong position. The top two put us in a very commanding position. They [Hampshire] have got some good spinners, and they took the pace right off. It was a slow wicket, and probably a wicket that we didn’t expect to be that slow. It didn’t really turn, but it was hard to generate much pace on the ball.
“We probably played some shots across the line on a slow, low wicket, which isn’t great. It probably comes off at The St Lawrence Ground, it doesn’t come off here. We’re going to have to learn from that. I think we probably had the line-up to get those runs today, and it’s disappointing to not.
“It’s a funny place to chase here when it’s slow and low like that, but I felt we were in a good enough position and we’ve got good enough players that we should have chased that down.”
Northeast did take time to praise the efforts of both Daniel Bell-Drummond, who’s 61 saw him make his ninth score of 50 or more in as many matches this season, and Matt Coles, who took career-best T20 figures of 4/27 from his four overs, against the county he played for in 2014.
“He did absolutely nothing wrong tonight”, Northeast said of Bell-Drummond.
“When you’re in that type of form, you just keep churning them out. I know he probably would have liked to be there at the end, and we would have liked him to be there at the end, but a good piece of work from Wheats [Adam Wheater] got him out, and that’s cricket.
“He’s in good form and hopefully that continues.”
“He was brilliant”, Northeast added on Coles.
“He worked out the wicket really well straight away, and started to take the pace off it. It was a really good effort from him. He’s a class performer – he always is in all forms.”
The Spitfires will be looking to return to winning ways immediately, starting tonight with another NatWest T20 Blast fixture, this time against Gloucestershire.
“The South Group is extremely tough”, the Kent captain admitted.
“If you go through the South Group without losing, you’ve played unbelievable cricket. That’s what we did last year at times. It’s probably a game that we should have won, but that’s cricket, and we’re going to have to bounce back.”
Kent have named an unchanged 13-man squad for the game against Gloucestershire, starting at 5:30pm at Beckenham tonight.
Kent Spitfires: (from) Bell-Drummond, Denly, Latham, Northeast*, Stevens, Blake, Cowdrey, Billings†, Coles, Griffiths, Tredwell, Hunn, Thomas
Gloucestershire: (from) Klinger*, Cockbain, Dent, Howell, Marshall, Noema-Barnett, Norwell, Payne, Roderick†, Smith, J Taylor, M Taylor, Tye, Van Buuren
Photography courtesy of Steve Bailey