Hampshire Hawks won by five wickets

KENT’S Twenty20 Cup aspirations virtually ended for another year after their fourth successive qualifying defeat, this time by five wickets to the Hampshire Hawks.

A Rose Bowl crowd approaching 9,000 cheered their side on to a second Southern Group win with a ball to spare to leave Kent anchored to the foot of the table without a point.

To put the defeat into an even bleaker context, this was against a Hampshire side missing the services of Shane Warne, John Crawley, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Alan Mullally, Billy Taylor, Chris Tremlett and Kevin Pietersen.

Having hit 154 for nine after electing to bat first, Kent made a decent start to their fielding stint when Derek Kenway chopped onto his middle stump from Andrew Hall’s second delivery of the reply.

Home bowling hero Greg Lamb (11) then miscued a drive to make it 33 for two after five overs, but from then on Hampshire paced their reply to perfection.

Nic Pothas and Craig McMillan (36) combined to add 49 in seven overs for the third wicket a stand that ended when McMillan’s reverse sweep sailed to short third man.

Without addition to the score Sean Ervine wandered out of his ground to be stumped by Niall O’Brien, but it was the last success of any relevance for the visitors.

The stylish Lawrence Prittipaul, dropped on seven by a tumbling Rob Ferley at long leg, joined forces with Pothas to take the game from Kent’s grasp with a stand of 72 in eight overs.

Pothas contributed an excellent unbeaten 58 from 55 balls and Prettipaul 35 off 24 balls to take the scores even before the latter lost his off stump to an Andrew Hall yorker.

With two balls of the game remaining home skipper Sean Udal came in to scamper the single to mid-wicket that again sent Kent home without a point.

Earlier, Kent will have been disappointed with their scoring rate of 7.7 an over in ideal conditions and despite a bludgeoning start from acting skipper Matt Walker.

Hawks’ skipper Udal rang the bowling changes almost non-stop, using eight bowlers in all, it was his spinners that served him best and none more so than Lamb.

A Zimbabe-born off-spinner who is now English qualified after playing three years of local league cricket, Lamb recorded excellent figures of four for 28 including the scalps of Rob Key, Hall, Martin van Jaarsveld and Simon Cook.

After Walker’s cracking start of 35 from 19 balls, including two sixes off James Bruce, Kent’s much changed top order largely mis-fired.

Makeshift opener Justin Kemp again struggled to find his timing and contributed two runs to an opening stand of 40 that ended when Walker top-edged a sweep to deep-square.

That bought in Saturday’s top-scorer Michael Carberry, fresh from an unbeaten 48 against Middlesex, the left-hander might have gone without scoring had Lamb held a diving chance at slip off the bowling off Craig McMillan.

Kemp (17) had no such luck, holing out to cow corner then Twenty20 Cup winner Darren Stevens (6) continued his disappointing run by heaving across the line to go leg before.

Hall (9) gave Lamb his first wicket by driving straight to long-off, then Key (7) lost his balance to a leg-side wide to be stumped by Kenway.

Batting way out of position at seven, Martin van Jaarsveld hit five at a run-a-ball before he chopped onto middle again off Lamb.

Despite the collapse all around him, Carberry kept finding the spaces with twos and threes and six fours to reach his maiden Twenty20 half-century from 36 balls.

Yet there continued to be little or no support as Cook (5) lost his balance when slogging to give Kenway another stumping then James Tredwell (4) chipped to mid-off when trying to clear the infield.

Carberry was ninth and last out, his 56 coming from 43 balls, but his efforts were all in vain.

Kent return to Twenty20 action again on Wednesday when they travel to Uxbridge to take on Middlesex.