A LATE salvo from Spitfires skipper Matthew Fleming wrestled a seven-wicket win and the Titans of Kent Challenge Trophy from Lashings at a rain-soaked St Lawrence on Sunday.

Despite the fact that Lashings again fielded a world-class side, only a handful of hardy souls turned out for the rain-affected clash that started late and ended in twilight.

Overnight rain and morning showers delayed the toss, but it was Richie Richardson who finally won it and elected to make first use of the pitch for a reduced innings of 28 overs. The visitors never really recovered from the opening bursts of Jamie Hewitt and Amjad Khan who claimed two wickets apiece to reduce the county-town club to 30 for four.

Zimbabwean Grant Flower led a partial recover with a joint top-score of 43 before falling to off-spinner James Tredwell, then former West Indies skipper Jimmy Adams farmed the last overs to finish unbeaten on the same score.

Kent would have fancied their chances of beating Lashings’ 147 for eight, but the scenario was made much tougher when the rain returned during the interval. Under the Duckworth/Lewis method the hosts revised target of 68 in 10 overs looked a tricky one, particularly against an all-Test attack of Shoaib Akhtar, Alan Donald, Waqar Younis, Shahid Afridi and Wasim Akram.

The task looked nigh on impossible when James Hockley and Ed smith both had their stumps shattered by Shoaib without troubling the scorer, then when Rob Key advanced to be stumped by Jimmy Adams for just a dozen.

But that was the signal for Fleming’s spectacular counter attack and a match winning cameo of 44 not out from just 27 balls. The former England one-day international left it late, and deliberately so, as he and Andrew Symonds (13) saw Kent to the finish line with three balls to spare.

Fleming said afterwards: "I said to Symo that it would be nigh-on impossible to get the runs off Shoaib, so we decided I should take on Waqar."

The result was a spectacular penultimate over in which Fleming clubbed the former Pakistan skipper Waqar for 20 runs. With the hard work done, it was left to Symonds to smash the winning boundary and see Kent home to their seven-wicket win.

"At this stage of my career this was probably the last time I was likely to come up against such a pace attack so I wanted to enjoy it," added the Kent limited overs’ skipper. "It’s just a shame that because of the weather so few people decided to brave it here today, but at least those that did saw a decent finish."

Lashings’ chairman David Folb praised Fleming’s innings afterwards and said, sponsorship provided, the Challenge would be re-issued next season. "I have always said that Matthew is my favourite Kent player and that was just a typical innings by him today," he said.

"It’s a great pity about the weather and that has clearly influenced the size of the crowd, but I will be sitting down with the Kent authorities soon to talk about the challenge match for next year and the possibility of having a floodlit match again.

"This fixture is ready-made for the theatre of day-night cricket and that’s what I will be pushing for in 2003."