Kent 283 & 145-1 Lancashire 125: Joseph spell leaves Lancashire in trouble
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Your support makes all the difference.If Kent's luck is about to change, then it is not before time. They have certainly taken charge of this match. Despite establishing a substantial first innings lead, the Kent captain Rob Key had eschewed the opportunity of enforcing the follow-on, banking instead on building substantially on the 158-run first innings lead. Key lost his own wicket early on, but Joe Denly and Neil Dexter duly obliged, smacking a wilting Lancashire attack to all parts as they took the Kent total to three figures in double quick time.
Earlier Geraint Jones reached his first hundred for 13 months, having helped tease 81 vital runs out of Kent's last three wickets. Lancashire were in trouble from the very first ball, Paul Horton deflecting the delivery from Robbie Joseph on to his middle stump. Mal Loye and Mark Chilton soon followed. By the time the Antigua-born, England-qualified Joseph had finished his stint, his 13 unchanged overs had yielded a return of 5-34.
Even without the 26-year-old there was no respite for Lancashire: Key called up Martin Saggers, who took 3-3 in nine overs. Lancashire's captain Stuart Law suffered a back spasm during the morning warm-up and by the time he was able to bat six wickets had fallen.
What he needed was a hot bath; what he got was short shrift as he became the seventh wicket to fall and the first of Saggers' victims. Kent found Glen Chapple to be the nearest thing to an immovable object while last man Sajid Mahmood weighed in with a lusty 33 before Saggers got him.
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