da brdice： A season’s-best unbeaten 181 by Darren Stevens took Kent into a strong positionbefore rain and lightning arrived at Tunbridge Wells to halt play with the hostson 478 for 6
06-Jun-2010
ScorecardA season’s-best unbeaten 181 by Darren Stevens took Kent into a strong positionbefore rain and lightning arrived at Tunbridge Wells to halt play with the hostson 478 for 6.Responding to Nottinghamshire’s first-innings 462, Kent moved into a 16-runlead courtesy of a Nevill Ground sixth-wicket record stand worth 270 betweenStevens and James Tredwell (115) before umpires Nigel Llong and Jeff Evansabandoned play for the day just after 5pm.By 3pm the Kent pair had already beaten the 58-year-old ground recordpartnership of Dickie Mayes and Bill Murray-Wood worth 233, scored here againstSussex in 1952, and had eased Kent into their slender lead on a dry and docilepitch. In hot, humid conditions, the visiting attack struggled to find a cutting edgeas pacemen Andre Adams and Darren Pattinson failed to add to their respectivewicket tallies from Saturday.Stevens, 80 overnight, scorched to his fourth hundred of the championshipcampaign from 105 balls and with 17 fours, then Tredwell joined him in threefigures from 194 deliveries for his first ton of 2010. Stevens, strong on the drive and cut, also pulled two sixes over the ropes at mid-wicket both off the bowling of Nottinghamshire’s England one-day international spinner Samit Patel.Tredwell also took liberties against the left-armer, hitting him for two successive boundaries to sprint through the 70s towards his third careerhundred. In all, Tredwell found the ropes 19 times but the partnership came to asurprise end in the 121st over when the left-hander, advancing down the pitch todrive at Nottinghamshire’s debutant spinner Graeme White, clipped a return catchto the bowler.Storm clouds and heavy showers arrived soon after to drive the players from thefield for an early tea to leave former Leicestershire batsman Stevens just 19short of the second double hundred of his career. Having already hit three championship hundreds in 2010, Stevens now has more than 700 runs to his name at an average of 89.25.