County Championship: Kent make good start against Gloucestershire

Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury (day one)

Gloucestershire 229: Bracey 86; Milnes 4-55

Kent 71-1: Compton 33*

Kent (3 pts) trail Gloucestershire (0 pts) by 158 runs

Match scorecard

Kent were 71-1 at stumps after day one of their County Championship game with Gloucestershire at Canterbury, trailing by 158.

The promotion-hopefuls dismissed Gloucestershire for 229 after choosing to bowl, with Matt Milnes taking 4-55. James Bracey top-scored with 86, while Ollie Price made 52.

JT Langridge then got Zak Crawley for one, but Ben Compton and Sam Northeast were not out on 33 and 27 respectively at stumps.

Needing 20 points to guarantee promotion, Kent chose to bowl on a track so green it was difficult to see the edges of the strip, although it didn’t play that badly.

Matt Milnes struck in the second over, Joe Phillips wafting him to Sam Northeast at first, but Gloucestershire responded well, with a stand worth 62 between Price and Tom Boorman, that was broken by Ekansh Singh shortly before lunch when he had the latter caught behind for 29.

It was 74-2 at the interval, during which Grant Stewart was presented with his county cap, becoming the 224th Kent player to receive that honour.

Matt Quinn got Miles Hammond for 14, edging to Tawanda Muyeye at third, before Keith Dudgeon had Price lbw.

Kamran Dhariwal slashed Milnes to Muyeye for two and Daaryoush Ahmed was bowled by Khaled Ahmed for four. Khaled then had Sai Kishore caught behind for a duck, before bowling Che Simmons for four.

Matt Taylor, however, helped Gloucestershire to 208-8 at tea, after which Boorman came out as a runner for Bracey, who had earlier been hit on the leg after a shy at the stumps by the sub Bertie Foreman.

They put on 58 for the ninth wicket before Milnes wrapped up the innings with two wickets in four balls. He had Bracey caught by Northeast at gully before taking a violent return catch to get Langridge for a duck.

Bracey’s injury meant Hammond had to keep wicket, but the visitors had some early joy when Langridge got Crawley for one, plumb lbw in the third over.

Compton and Northeast steadied things, however. With four overs left, and the light fading, the umpires told Gloucestershire they would have to bowl their spinners and after two of these they decided to go off.

ECB Reporters’ Network supported by Rothesay.