Bell-Drummond holds up Foxes
Mon 30 May 2016
Kent versus Leicestershire, Specsavers County Championship, Day 2:
SCORECARD | Available through ESPN Cricinfo HERE
INTERVIEW | Niall O’Brien speaks to BBC Radio Leicester’s Richard Rae HERE
HIGHLIGHTS | The highlights of the second day are available HERE
REPORT | Heavy cloud cover at Canterbury meant that almost half of the second day’s play was lost in the Specsavers County Championship game between Kent and Leicestershire.
County added one run to their overnight 340-8, Darren Stevens and Matt Coles ending with 4-74 and 3-94 respectively.
Clint McKay (11-4-23-1) and Ben Raine (11-5-20-1) picked up a wicket apiece as Leicestershire’s seamers stuck to their task on a good wicket but the team was again frustrated by the in-form Daniel Bell-Drummond.
The talented opener scored a classy hundred to hold Kent's first innings together at the Fischer County Ground last month and again played nicely, moving to 65 not out before stumps as the hosts replied with 117-2 off 44 overs.
It was the seventh time in 11 first-class innings that Bell-Drummond was passing 50, and his seasonal tally stood at 769 at 128.16 at the end of the day.
At the start of day two Kent needed only 15 balls to take the two remaining Leicestershire first innings wickets.
‘Keeper Sam Billings took his fifth catch of the innings off the bowling of Stevens to end McKay’s stay at 16, then Coles had Charlie Shreck held by Matt Hunn at mid-on without scoring. James Sykes ended unbeaten on 12.
McKay and Raine were a probing new ball combination and the former was rewarded for his discipline in the 11th over of the innings.
Shortly after a 14-minute delay for bad light from noon, Latham, the New Zealand Test batsman, played half forward and outside the line of a McKay in-swinger to go leg before for nine with the score at 15.
Bell-Drummond and Joe Denly, with double centuries to their names already this summer, were severely tested in tricky conditions.
The duo played and missed a couple of times and also survived concerted appeals for catches behind the stumps but made it through to lunch with the score at 48-1 from 22 overs.
They extended the alliance to 88 after the interval with Bell-Drummond, who timed a number of drives nicely on both sides of the wicket, recording 50 off the 99th ball faced. It came courtesy of the least convincing of eight boundaries, a nick off the returning Raine that flashed past Paul Horton at first slip in the gloom.
Bell-Drummond edged Raine for another four two balls later but the all-rounder kept his cool and struck at the start of his next offering, trapping Denly (32) lbw with a well-pitched up delivery.
That was the final major piece of action of the day as an early tea was taken and the players were not to return to the field. Umpires Alex Wharf and Paul Pollard abandoned the day at 5.45pm with 47 overs having been lost.
Captain Sam Northeast ended the day on 5 not out alongside Bell-Drummond, who now averages above 50 in his first-class career against Leicestershire.
It was the fourth time in eight innings that Bell-Drummond has passed 50 against the Foxes - and he has converted on two of the previous three occasions.
