Kent earned their second win in three Royal London One-Day Cup games as they hammered Somerset by 95 runs on Tuesday.
After a rain delay that led to a 30 over a side game, Kent put an impressive 231-6 on the board at Canterbury before bowling Somerset out for just 136.
Daniel Bell-Drummond and Sam Northeast both hit half-centuries for Kent before Ivan Thomas took three wickets as Kent ripped through Somerset’s batting line-up, Lewis Gregory’s 3-37 the only bright spark for the visitors.
Delayed start doesn't slow Kent
Both teams were made to wait three and a half hours to start due to rain and Somerset won the toss and put Kent into bat, which proved not to be the best idea.
Kent made an impressive start to their innings as they raced to 56 from eight overs before Joe Denly fell for a pedestrian 12 from 25 balls whilst Bell-Drummond was unbeaten on 39 at the other end.
That brought captain Northeast to the crease who carried on Kent’s good start, reaching 96-1 from 15 overs as Bell-Drummond went through to his eighth List A fifty in just 26 games.
Strong finish from Kent
Kent’s second wicket went past fifty as Bell-Drummond smashed Max Waller for six, before Adam Hose caught his second catch of the day to dismiss the 22-year-old for 68 from 51 off the bowling of Roelof van der Merwe.
Northeast went to his half-century shortly after from just 35 balls, but Waller was to put an end to Sam Billings’ innings in the 24th over with a stunning one-handed catch on the midwicket boundary to give Gregory his second wicket after removing Denly earlier on, making the score 176-3.
Waller picked himself up a wicket two overs later as Kent’s captain went for 64, before Gregory picked up his third and final wicket as Darren Stevens was caught by Tim Groenewald for 4.
Alex Blake caused chaos in the penultimate over as Craig Overton was smashed for 22, Blake finishing on an unbeaten 36 from 22 balls with three fours and two sixes.
Somerset come unstuck early on
That left Somerset needing almost eight an over to chase Kent’s 231 and one thing they didn’t want to happen was for the in-form Johann Myburgh to fall early on.
The South African had hit two half-centuries in their three Royal London One-Day Cup games so far, but went for just four off the bowling of Matt Coles.
Two Stevens' (2-14) wickets in two balls left Somerset in real trouble at 35-3 as Hose went for ten and Jim Allenby for a first-ball duck.
The 6.2 overs between the fall of Myburgh and Hose was to be the longest stint between Somerset wickets as Kent piled on the pressure.
Peter Trego was next to go for 23 before Somerset found themselves 64/6 as James Hildreth and Gregory went, but van der Merwe and Alex Barrow showed some resistance as van der Merwe hit 29 from 22 and wicketkeeper Barrow 27 from 18.
That was to be Somerset’s biggest partnership of 53 in just five overs, before Thomas claimed his first two wickets by removing the pair of them in consecutive overs and Somerset were all but finished at 125-8.
Thomas and Coles (2-21) wrapped up the final two Somerset wickets in fairly quick time as Overton departed for eight and Waller five, skittling their visitors for just 136 in 24.2 overs to earn a comprehensive 95-run victory.