Kent Spitfires completed a Duckworth-Lewis win over Somerset on Friday night in a game curtailed by heavy winds and an electrical storm.
The game had started in bright sunshine on a sweltering summer’s evening in Canterbury, but a mini-tornado swept through the ground in the early stages of Somerset’s chase of 196 in the NatWest T20 Blast encounter, with the players brought from the middle to allow the floodlights to be lowered amid safety fears.
The players then never made their way back from the pavilion as the lightning began and the conditions were not deemed safe enough for play to restart. By then, however, the Spitfires already found themselves firmly in the driving seat, putting in an impressive performance in front of a season-best crowd, as they posted 195-7 from their 20-over allocation, and then reduced Somerset to 59-5 midway through the eighth over of their reply; Darren Stevens excelling with 4-17.
Sam Northeast made 73 and captain Rob Key 72 as they helped the hosts post a daunting total just short of 200. The pair also put on a record-equalling 135 together for the second wicket in the process, having come together off just the second ball of the match with Daniel Bell-Drummond bowled off the first by an excellent delivery from T20 specialist Dirk Nannes.
Key and Northeast took the attack to the Somerset bowlers from the off, keeping the run rate at more than 10-an-over throughout their partnership.
Northeast was the first to go to fifty, followed by Key in the very next over, the pair’s knocks the fifth and 13th half-centuries of their T20 careers, respectively.
24-year-old Northeast’s landmark came from 32 balls and Key’s from just 30, as the captain and vice-captain pair found the boundary regularly.
Northeast’s 45-ball 73 had featured 11 fours and a six before he was dismissed by seamer Tim Groenewald in the fourteenth over, skying the ball straight into the air with the bowler taking a decent catch off his own bowling.
Key’s dismissal was a slightly out-of-the-ordinary one as he was run out by Groenewald; the bowler kicking the ball onto the stumps with the Kent captain seemingly failing to realise he was in any danger as Darren Stevens attempted a quick single.
It was a superb knock from the Spitfires skipper nonetheless, his 42-ball knock including nine boundaries, four of them sixes including a couple of huge efforts over the legside boundary.
Stevens (11) and Sam Billings (16) were the only other batsmen to reach double figures for Kent as the home side lost five wickets in the final five overs of their innings chasing quick runs.
Alex Blake (8) was another to come and go trying to keep pushing the run rate up, before Fabian Cowdrey was run out for 7 off the final ball of the innings; the Spitfires having amassed an impressive 195-7 from their 20 overs – their second highest T20 total of the campaign.
Dirk Nannes ended as the pick of the Somerset attack, taking 3-30 for his side in what was a must-win game for them; Kent’s quarter-final chances already all-but mathematically dead and buried.
The dark, stormy clouds had become well set in by the time Marcus Trescothick and Lewis Gregory strode to the middle to begin the visitors’ chase.
They found themselves in trouble early on; the brilliant Stevens having Gregory (4) caught by Cowdrey at mid-off in the first over, before Ben Harmison removed Trescothick (5) in the second.
The dangerous Peter Trego (4), once of Kent, fell in the third – his middle stump pegged back by Stevens as he attempted a big shot – before the Kent all-rounder had James Hildreth well caught by Billings, standing up to the stumps, for a five-ball duck; the 38-year-old fan’s favourite completing a fantastic double-wicket maiden.
With wickets falling at the other end, South African Colin Ingram did his best to take the attack to Kent, hitting boundaries as it became more and more obvious that the weather would be interrupting proceedings sooner rather than later.
Chris Jones became Stevens’ fourth victim when he went for a golden duck, the wily former-Leicestershire man’s figures of 4-1-17-4 showcasing what a magnificent job he had done for his side in the short amount of time available to them.
As debris began to be blown around the outfield with the winds picking up, it became clear that playing conditions were far from ideal, and with Kent 40 runs ahead by the Duckworth-Lewis method, club officials asked the umpires to bring the players from the field to allow the floodlights to be lowered.
With reports of tornados nearby in east Kent earlier in the evening, that would be it for the night; a somewhat bizarre encounter ended prematurely, but with the Spitfires able to look back on a strong all-round performance from the time that had been available to them.
Their attentions now return to four-day cricket, as they travel to Guildford to face Surrey in the LV= County Championship Division Two; the game starting on Sunday.
Kent Spitfires vs. Somerset, NatWest T20 Blast, South Group, The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence, Canterbury, 18 July 2014:
Kent 195-7 (Northeast 73, Key 72; Nannes 3-30) beat Somerset 59-5 (7.3 overs) (Ingram 37 not out; Stevens 4-17) by 40 runs (D/L)
Kent Spitfires: Bell-Drummond, Key* Northeast, Stevens, Blake, Billings†, Cowdrey, Harmison, Tredwell, Claydon, Riley
Somerset: Trescothick†, Gregory, Trego, Ingram, Hildreth, Jones, Overton, Groenewald, Thomas*, Nannes, Dockrell
Kent Spitfires won the toss and elected to bat
Points: Kent Spitfires 2, Somerset 0
Full scorecard available here
Pictures supplied by www.sarahansellphotography.com