Kent under GrahamB (v12.24)

[GrahamB]

KENT v UNICORNS (Challenge Trophy 2013)

You know you're not a champion team when you lose to the Unicorns!

After a disastrous start that saw us at 33/4, Procter (76) and Cowdrey (67) enabled us to score 216/7.
Querl (1/31) and Cheetham (2/40) are certainly a couple of capable opening bowlers, and they were backed up well by Wheeldon (1/33).

The young Unicorns batsmen went after our ace bowler, Matthew, smashing him around unceremoniously for 2/58.
Knappett (44) and Campbell (79no) set up their side for a win with a fine partnership, and then Park (28) joined up with Campbell to pretty much finish the job.
Procter (7-1-29-1) was the only one of our bowlers who was able to contain the batsmen.



Still hoping for an improvement on last season's finish, but our chances of progressing past the group stage have now gone.

[GrahamB]

News

Vernon Philander has come back from international duty, allowing Mervin Matthew the chance to return home for a while.

[GrahamB]

Some changes to our playing eleven to play away at Sussex in another Challenge Trophy match, with some players requiring a rest and with the pitch expected to help spinners.
Naylor comes in for Birch, Powell for Blake, Philander for Matthew, Tredwell for Beckett and Ball for Carter.

[KGKOOLKAT777]

Some changes to our playing eleven to play away at Sussex in another Challenge Trophy match, with some players requiring a rest and with the pitch expected to help spinners.
Naylor comes in for Birch, Powell for Blake, Philander for Matthew, Tredwell for Beckett and Ball for Carter.

Sussex have a very formidable line-up. Bowling and batting looks solid. Good luck with your promotion. It will be a challenge but I believe you have the line-up to achieve it.

[GrahamB]

Good luck with your promotion. It will be a challenge but I believe you have the line-up to achieve it.

Thanks.

[GrahamB]

SUSSEX v KENT (Challenge Trophy 2013)

A superb bowling and fielding effort by our lads restricted Sussex to a meagre 146/6, albeit under very awkward conditions.
Joe Gatting held the home side's batting together with a classy 72no, with opener Neil McKenzie (31) the only other batsman to handle the conditions.
Murtagh (3/27), Procter (2/29) and Philander (2/34) were all dangerous.

Key (53) and Cole (59no) steered us into a position from which we were able to cruise to victory, without ever having to push the pedal down too much.

It felt great to get a victory over Mark Davies and the Sussex side.



A win in our final game will give some respectability.

[KGKOOLKAT777]

SUSSEX v KENT (Challenge Trophy 2013)

A superb bowling and fielding effort by our lads restricted Sussex to a meagre 146/6, albeit under very awkward conditions.
Joe Gatting held the home side's batting together with a classy 72no, with opener Neil McKenzie (31) the only other batsman to handle the conditions.
Murtagh (3/27), Procter (2/29) and Philander (2/34) were all dangerous.

Key (53) and Cole (59no) steered us into a position from which we were able to cruise to victory, without ever having to push the pedal down too much.

It felt great to get a victory over Mark Davies and the Sussex side.



A win in our final game will give some respectability.

Really great job mate. Your story is the best by far.

[GrahamB]

All of our matches from here on in seem to be quite important. Next up is a County Championship match at home against Worcestershire.

We're persisting with Ben Birch to see whether or not we should sign him for the upcoming season and let Sam Northeast go.
Fabian Cowdrey gets further experience ahead of Mike Powell in the batting line up.
Ben Kemp gets another chance in the first team, as we go in with a four man pace attack.

[GrahamB]

KENT v WORCESTERSHIRE (County Championship D2 2013)

After winning the toss and choosing to bat, we recovered from a shaky 104/3 to post a massive 535/5 declared.
Captain, Rob Key, was the catalyst, converting his sixth century of the season into a double century.
However, the next ball after completing this milestone, Key failed to connect with an attempted hook off Pathan and was felled by a sickening blow to his chest. News would later reveal our worst fears. His season is now over.
Cole (41), Cowdrey (35), Blake (112), Ambrose (55no) and Philander (52no) all made good use of the batting conditions. Alex Blake is certainly showing that he's a useful batsman in all forms of the game now.
Richard Jones (3/83) was the only visiting bowler to come off with creditable figures.

Worcestershire lost Ali early, but that brought together their two best batsmen, the well performed Daryl Mitchell and English international Paul Kevan.
Mitchell smashed 37 off 42 balls, before Murtagh exacted revenge for the punishment he had taken.
Dicks (38) and Pathan both shared useful partnerships with Kevan, but once they were gone, the Worcestershire innings collapsed from 251/4 to 321 all out.
Along the way, the impressive Kevan completed his sixth century of the season too, finally being dismissed for 166.
Murtagh (5/117) and Philander (3/77) took the lion's share of the spoils.

With the match at an advanced stage (midway through Day Three), we chose to enforce the follow on.
But the pitch was still favouring the batsmen and table-topping Worcestershire showed their strength with a strong second innings batting effort.
Kevan (141) completed his second century of the match, while Ali (57), Dicks (60) and Kervesee (47no) all played their part in enabling their side to declare at 410/8 early in the final session of the game.

Cole opened with Bitch, in Key's absence.
Cole was the only wicket to fall as we batted out time to end the match at 61/1.



No hope of promotion now. Perhaps next season.

[GrahamB]

Our final Challenge Trophy match of the season is at home against Leicestershire.

We only have two opening batsmen fit at present - Naylor and Birch, so no choice there.
With Key out injured, Powell comes back into the side to take over the captaincy. This means that Cowdrey unluckily misses out.
We go in with an all pace attack.

Forgot to take a screenshot of the playing elevens.

[GrahamB]

KENT v LEICESTERSHIRE (Challenge Trophy 2013)

What a strange match.

Scoring runs was proving difficult and when we tried to do something about, wickets started tumbling.
Blake (43) and Cole (33) were the best of our batsmen as we were disappointingly and embarrassing dismissed for 156 in just the 34th over.
Collins was the most successful of the visiting bowlers with 3/32, while Hoggard and Sarwan picked up a couple of cheap wickets each.

We made early inroads into the Leicestershire batting to have them reeling at 33/4, but Sarwan (51) and Ali (41) combined to take their side through to 105/4.
With Procter going for a few too many runs, we took a gamble by bring Alex Blake on for a few overs. And what a masterstroke that turned out to be as he not only broke the partnership, but claimed a second victim soon after.
It was still touch and go for us though at 137/7 until Murtagh came back for his final couple of overs. Murtagh had Ali caught behind off a lovely ball and then ripped out the final two wickets to secure an unlikely win for us.



A better finish than last season, but not good enough to see us progress to the knockout phase.

[GrahamB]

Leicestershire remain in town to play the return fixture in the County Championship.

We have only two fit opening batsmen, so Ben Birch rather fortuitously holds onto his spot.
With Powell coming into the side to take the captaincy in place of injured Rob Key, there is no room for Cowdrey in the batting line up.
Fast bowler Erik Beckett gets a further chance to show his skills. He keeps out of form Andy Carter out.

[GrahamB]

KENT v LEICESTERSHIRE (County Championship D2 2013)

Birch made me eat my words with a tremendous century. Looks like he could well be signed on after all!
Naylor (75) and Birch (128) put on 184 for the first wicket to get us off to a fantastic start.
We then slumped to 248/4 before Luke Proctor (128) and Alex Blake (105) came together and scored 225 for the fifth wicket. It was the third century of the season for both.
We declared at 529/6, hoping that we could bowl out the visitors twice.

Leicestershire was struggling at 93/4, before Noel Hume (85) strode out to the middle.
Hume put together several useful partnerships with the middle and lower order batsmen, enabling his side to get through to a respectable 290 all out.
Jefferson (34), Sarwan (34) and Cobb (36) were the other main contributors.
Philander (5/56) was easily the pick of our bowlers, while Tredwell was also impressive in taking 3/53.

We enforced the follow on.
Jefferson (43) and Eckersley (32) helped get their side off to a solid start, and at 154/3, it looked as though we'd be thwarted in our victory bid.
However, once those two were gone, only Hume (50no) was able to establish himself as wickets tumbled at the other end.
Beckett (4/33) and Murtagh (4/84) were the ones to do most of the damage as we bowled Leicestershire out for 238 to win by an innings and 1 run.



We're going to finish in a respectable position.

[GrahamB]

News

Australia have come from 0-1 down to defeat England 4-1 in the 2013 Ashes series.
They are also cleaning up in the ODIs.

Alex Blake has picked up an injury and will miss the final game of the season.

[GrahamB]

Our final match of the 2013 season is a County Championship match against visiting Yorkshire.

I've decided to leave Philander out of the playing eleven, in favour of rewarding Andy Carter for his consistently excellent second team performances.
Fabian Cowdrey gets to play this time, replacing the injured Alex Blake.