Cricket: Kent roll on as Wells ends well

Warwickshire 314 & 280

Kent 379 & 216-6 Kent win by four wickets

Alan Wells, a major player in Sussex's sad winter exodus, is beginning to feel at home now in leafy Kent, raising his season's tally of Championship half-centuries from one to three with a fruitful visit to the most attractive of out-cricket grounds. He helped to seal Kent's third consecutive victory with a decisive pull for four off Warwickshire's most penetrative bowler in the second innings, Neil Smith.

This concluded a satisfactory day for a sizeable festival crowd. They would have heard the relentless rain continuing for most of the night, and noted the muggy, overcast morning with some alarm. A storm could have cheated them of a result. But wherever the rain clouds were swirling, it was away from Tunbridge Wells.

The final day began nicely poised, but to maintain balance it depended on the back half of Warwickshire's order stiffening Kent's afternoon run chase with some early enterprise, preferably from the overnight batsmen David Hemp and Graeme Welch. The wicket looked perfect for four-day cricket - flat, but willing to reward attacking bowling.

Warwickshire are handicapped in this respect. Their captain Tim Munton is a long-term casualty after a back operation, Allan Donald is temporarily ruled out, Gladstone Small - who took three cheap first-innings wickets - sat out yesterday afternoon with a groin strain, and the left-arm spinner Ashley Giles nursed his sore shins with a short stint as the 12th man.

The visitors' tail could not wag long enough to set a panic- inducing target, given their second-choice attack. Hemp, 113 overnight, added only four before misreading the Zimbabwean leg-spinner Paul Strang, who soon persuaded Hemp to hit high and hopelessly.

Welch was now in charge but the responsibility subdued him, and there were to be no useful cameos from nine, 10 or Jack. In before lunch, Kent's target from their minimum allocation was precisely three an over.

David Fulton, the top scorer first time out, and Matthew Walker made a spirited start to the chase, but no more than that. Walker was dropped when on three but the culprit, Smith, soon made amends, fooling the left- hander with his brisk off-spin. The asking rate was so modest that Kent had no difficulty in keeping up with the clock during the afternoon session, but two more of Fulton's partners came and went before Wells, who stroked 70 in the first innings, steadied a ship which, at 101 for 4, was being buffeted.

Two more quick wickets after tea made an unlikely Warwickshire victory suddenly possible, but there are few sounder lower-order batsmen than the Kent captain, Steve Marsh. With Wells now striking the ball imperiously, victory soon seemed easy once more, and arrived with 10 overs to spare.