KENT’S woeful Twenty20 Cup campaign came to a triumphant end with a five-run win over Essex Eagles in their last southern group qualifier at Canterbury.

Having posted a 20-over total of 154 for four, Spitfires restricted the visitors to 149 for seven to seal their first win from eight matches and ruin Eagles’ hopes of reaching the quarter-finals.

The Kent bowling hero was Amjad Khan who ripped out the first three Essex batsmen to finish with three for 24, though for some reason known only to skipper Matt Walker he failed to bowl his fourth and final over.

Essex gave the run chase a good try thanks to Mark Pettini’s excellent 60 from 48 balls that only came to an end in the final over.

Needing 16 from Martin Saggers last over Pettini was obliged to run for a second to the penultimate ball of the match only to lose the race against Darren Stevens’ throw from long off.

It left Andre Adams with the impossible task of scoring seven off the final ball and Kent were soon celebrating their sole win of the campaign.

Kent’s innings was built around another excellent half-century from Michael Carberry, whose unbeaten 59 from 40 balls at least took Spitfires to a half-decent total.

The former Surrey left-hander has been Kent’s sole success story of the competition having scored 242 runs, at an average just over 80, yet again he received precious little support.

Carberry, batting at four, came in with the home score on 38 for two having witnessed the loss of Andrew Hall (4) and Matt Walker (29) in near identical fashion.

Both lost middle stump hitting across the line to Andre Adams, Walker at least will have been satisfied with his contribution of five fours from 21 balls faced.

In conjunction with Stevens (19), Carberry helped add 42 for the third wicket before the pair disagreed over a single to Ravinder Bopara at mid-wicket leading to Stevens’ run out.

Justin Kemp’s miserable run continued when, after hitting a rare six over mid wicket, he miscued against Grant Flower’s left-arm spinners to go for 15.

The tall South African has mustered only 112 cup runs in his six innings for a disappointing average of 18.

Martin van Jaarsveld sidled in at six to hit the shot of the night, a six over extra cover off Bopara that raised the Kent 150 in the final over and took the former Proteas Test player to an unbeaten 22 from 11 balls.

By then Carberry had reached his 34-ball half-century to secure another man-of-the-match award and help Kent to a rare Twenty20 win – their fifth in three seasons.