Notts will stay up if they avoid defeat in final round of fixtures
Haseeb Hameed and Ben Slater saw their side to victory • Getty Images
Nottinghamshire 433 (Slater 160, Haynes 62, Hameed 56, Gilchrist 4-101) and 28 for 0 (Slater 22*, Hameed 6*) beat Kent 225 (Evison 76, Farhan 4-37) and 230 (Muyeye 60, Evison 42, Duffy 4-60, Lord 3-42) by 10 wickets
Nottinghamshire have thrashed Kent by ten wickets in the Vitality County Championship at Canterbury, condemning the hosts to relegation and boosting their own survival hopes into the bargain.
Jacob Duffy took 4 for 60 and Robert Lord 3 for 42 as Kent were dismissed for 230 in their second innings.
Joey Evison scored 42 to make Nottinghamshire bat again, but the target was a mere 23 and the visitors needed just 3.3 overs to chase it down, Ben Slater finishing on 22 not out with Haseeb Hameed unbeaten on 6.
The result ends Kent’s wafer-thin chances of staying in the top flight, while Notts will stay up provided they avoid defeat in the final round of fixtures next week.
Kent began day three on 85 for 0, still 123 behind, but even their most pessimistic of fans, a title for which there is some fairly stiff competition this season, would have struggled to imagine a start as grim as this one.
Batting conditions were arguably the best they’d been, but they lost Tawanda Muyeye for 60 to the sixth ball of the morning, when he hit Duffy almost vertically and was caught by Dane Schadendorf.
Fellow opener Ben Compton was lbw to Lyndon James for 32 and Jack Leaning then swished at a short-pitched ball from Duffy and was caught behind for a third-ball duck.
Lord replaced James at the Nackington Road end and had Joe Denly caught by Freddie McCann in the slips for 8 with his third delivery before Duffy sent Daniel Bell-Drummond’s off stump flying for 21. In the next over, the 31st, Lord got Harry Finch for a second-ball duck, the victim of a superb one-handed grab by Schadendorf.
Matt Parkinson made 9 before Farhan Ahmed had him caught by McCann at leg slip but when Akeem Jordan then hit a boundary, a lone voice on the Old Dover Road sang: “We will make you bat again,” to the tune of “Bread of Heaven.” His faith, at least, was rewarded.
Having begun the day with an over rate of minus four, Notts bowled spin from both ends to get themselves back level before lunch, at which point Kent had eroded the deficit to just 12.
Jordan creamed Duffy for six to bring up the 50 partnership and Evison swept Ahmed to bring the scores level, but Ahmed got Jordan lbw with the next ball for 32 and Duffy bowled Nathan Gilchrist for a third-ball duck.
A sterile passage of play followed as the fielders stayed on the boundary when Evison had the strike, but as soon as Lord returned from the Pavilion end he had him caught at point.
The only question remaining was how long it would take Notts to tick off the runs and Slater did it some style, pulling Jordan for six.
Notts take 23 points and Kent three.
