Bichel profits as Kent let Hampshire off hook

KENT 446 &amp; 84-3 <br/>HAMPSHIRE 325

If a fly-fisher in the nearby Test Valley had let a brown trout off the hook with the facility with which Kent gave Hampshire some slack yesterday he would have packed up his tackle and gone home.

Championship leaders Kent, chasing their first title for 27 years, had second-placed Hampshire all but in the bag having reduced their opponents to 172-7. They then allowed them to reduce the first-innings gulf to a less daunting 121 runs.

Hampshire further compounded Kent's problems by claiming three second-innings wickets before the visitors had been able to add very many runs.

The Kent captain David Fulton, limping because of a bruised foot, pushed at a delivery from Dimitri Mascarenhas and was caught behind; Niall O'Brien holed out to the same bowler in the deep; and Robert Key, a pillar in the first innings, was lbw to Sean Ervine when the lead was still below 200.

Yet it had all gone swimmingly as Kent took charge of the morning session, thanks to a spell of four wickets in 11 overs, shared out among Amjad Khan, Min Patel and Andrew Hall.

Their problems began just before lunch. While they were celebrating the fall of Greg Lamb and the dangerous Mascarenhas, the in-form Aussie Andy Bichel, in his second match for Hampshire as stand-in for Shane Warne, was striding out to the middle.

He had scored a hundred in his first innings for Hampshire. It was probably reassuring for Bichel to team up again with the obdurate wicketkeeper Nic Pothas. The pair of them had enjoyed compiling a record stand of 257 for the eighth wicket against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham 11 days ago.

This effort was not quite of the same magnitude, but it was certainly big enough to frustrate Kent for more than two hours and spare Hampshire the ignominy of following on.

Pothas, who is like an immovable object at the crease, was unbeaten on 74, bringing his aggregate in his last five innings to 476 at an average of 158. Bichel smashed 87 off 90 balls.

It all served to lift home spirits, which were then raised even higher when the Kent second-innings wickets started to fall. A bit of persistence today by Hampshire could even see victory slipping from Kent's grasp.