County Championship: Lancashire complete innings win over Kent

Lancashire routed Kent by an innings and 83 runs in their County Championship showdown at Canterbury.

The visitors bowled Kent out for 222 in their second innings, with Will Williams taking 3-26 and Tom Bailey 3-36.

Charlie Stobo made his highest first-class score of 64 but the hosts were all out after 30.2 overs on day four.

The result drastically increases Lancashire’s chances of avoiding the drop, while Kent remain anchored to the foot of the table.

It was an outcome that had looked almost inevitable ever since Kent lost a cluster of wickets midway through day one.

The hosts were a shadow of the side who won convincingly at Old Trafford earlier this season, with six of the players who pulled off what remains their only red-ball win of the season injured or unavailable.

They resumed on 143-6 and, with a deficit of 162, not many observers were expecting them to take the game deep into the fourth day.

Beyers Swanepoel, batting with Tawanda Muyeye as his runner, was the first to fall, cutting Tom Bailey to Jack Blatherwick for 26 in the fourth over of the morning, but Stobo and Matt Parkinson responded with an obdurate stand that used up 18.3 overs.

Parkinson tried an ill-advised pull shot against Nathan Lyon and, although that was spilled by Bailey at backward square leg, he was out to the next ball he faced.

Stobo brought up his second first-class fifty in the next over when he drove Luke Wells for four but, after taking a single, Parkinson was left with the strike and Wells pinned him lbw for seven.

Wells had George Garrett caught at first slip by Keaton Jennings at first slip for five and the victory was sealed when Williams used the new ball to send Stobo’s off-stump cartwheeling.