DeFreitas comes to rescue for Leicestershire

Leicestershire 131 and 400 Kent 339 and 66-1

On a day of gloriously reliable sunshine, the cricket was anything but predictable. Leicestershire, having staged an unlikely recovery from 208 behind to level the scores with three wickets down yesterday morning, then veered so violently off course it appeared they would be beaten by tea.

Let down by their middle order, after Trevor Ward and Iain Sutcliffe, the openers, had performed with such distinction, Leicestershire slumped from 200 for 2 in the 80th over to 225 for 6 in the 87th. A Saturday on the golf course beckoned.

For a side still with ideas about catching Surrey in the Frizzell County Championship, however, to go down so tamely would have been a poor tale.

It needed someone to show some backbone and on this occasion it was Phillip DeFreitas. Some 17 years after his debut for Leicestershire, it seems mildly astonishing that, at 36, DeFreitas is still turning out, especially in view of the reputation he once rather unfairly acquired in these parts. Picked for an Ashes tour after only two seasons in county cricket, he was regarded by the dressing-room seniors as a headstrong young man who needed to be put in his place.

An unpleasant atmosphere, famously brought to a head when Jonathan Agnew dumped his kit over the balcony here to avenge a dining-room prank, eventually led him to leave for Lancashire. How glad Leicestershire are that, after 10 years away, he decided to come back.

His value to them now, at 36, is inestimable, and yesterday's century rescued his side from the apparent certainty of early defeat. It was his ninth century of his career but only his fourth for Leicestershire.

Sutcliffe had completed his first century of the season with his 17th boundary, at which point Leicestershire were only 13 runs short of parity.

But an implosion followed, David Masters claiming Sutcliffe, Vince Wells and Darren Stevens in the space of 10 balls before Min Patel added Neil Burns to the run of swift departures, bringing DeFreitas to the middle to join Michael Bevan, then 24.

Kent trailed by only 17. But a partnership of 128 in 41 overs turned the match on its head, DeFreitas outscoring the Australian to reach 50 off 71 balls before Bevan perished leg before, for 61, immediately after lunch. DeFreitas' hundred came off 151 balls with 14 fours and three sixes, all off Patel. He survived three chances, one a sitter to Patel at slip on 51, but the merit of his performance was not lessened.

DeFreitas was unlucky, eventually, to get a lifter from Martin Saggers he could not control, giving Mark Ealham a catch at backward point.

Kent, having anticipated a stroll, need 193 to win. At 66-1 after only 12 overs last night, they are odds-on to complete the job successfully today, although in this match it would be unwise to discount further twists.