County Championship: Surrey seal victory after Kent defiance
- Surrey clinches victory in the County Championship following Kent’s resilient stand. Explore the highlights of this thrilling match.
On the final day of play in Canterbury, Surrey defeated Kent in County Championship Division One by an innings and 37 runs despite the home team’s courageous batting.
In their second inning, the defending champions dismissed the hosts for 262, with Dan Worrall taking 4-31 and Cameron Steel 3-38.
After three games, Steel has taken 20 wickets this season, making him the top wicket-taker in the nation.
Matt Parkinson scored his greatest first-class score of 39, and Joey Evison struck 53, but Kent gave in halfway through the afternoon session despite a tenacious rearguard effort that carried them through the morning session.
Ben Compton was caught behind off Worrall in the fifth over of the morning for 17, leaving the hosts 120-5 overnight and still 179 runs behind. This was a near-fatal blow to their modest prospects.
County Championship: Relive day four as it actually happened. Parkinson, who moved up to number eight in the order, had been working on his batting all winter in an attempt to support Kent’s lower order. By lunch, though, Kent had reached 203-6, and the seemingly impossible was now just unlikely.
But in the third over of the afternoon, Evison dropped. After reaching his half-century, he cut Tom Lawes for fours off consecutive boundaries, although he was eventually overtaken.
Now that Evison was gone, Kent broke. Jas Singh was out for a duck as Jamie Smith made an incredible catch at short leg off the same bowler that dismissed George Garrett for five.
After Garrett and Singh hit their career-best scores in the first inning, number 11 Arafat Bhuiyan had some fun with the new ball, flicking three balls in a row from Kemar Roach for six and two fours on his way to his highest championship score of 22 not out. He is the fourth Kent tail-ender to reach that personal milestone in this match.
This only served to postpone Surrey’s celebrations, though, as Smith’s superb close capture of Parkinson off Roach clinched an overwhelming triumph.
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