Obstinate Nixon keeps Kent at bay

Kent 245 and 411 Leicestershire 270 and 255-6 Match drawn

Undoubtedly the loss of 26 overs in the morning to bad light and drizzle hampered Kent's chances of victory, but more important were the defiant half-centuries by Paul Nixon and Damien Brandy.

Nixon was a mixture of stonewalling and the punched drives that had served him so well in his first-innings century, while Brandy brought up his maiden half-century with a flamboyant straight six. Despite both perishing just after reaching the landmark, Leicestershire, in the guise of wily old professionals Jeremy Snape and Phil DeFreitas, held firm until stumps.

For Kent it was a matter of what might have been. They had lost 28 overs after declaring on Friday, so yesterday's early gloom extended into the dressing room. The batsmen shuffled cards while the best seam attack they have had in years kicked their heels.

Last season the Kent captain, David Fulton, currently injured, bemoaned their inability to finish off sides when they were in contention for the Championship, and they have signed Alamgir Sheriyar from Worcestershire. Alongside Martin Saggers and Amjad Khan, with Mark Ealham in support, they would expect to bowl sides out within 100 overs, and often inside 80. They started well, claiming four wickets in 20 overs, but after Darren Stevens had departed for an attractive but breezy 45, Nixon and Brandy started to frustrate and eventually wrestle back control.

Always a man of substance rather than style, Nixon knows his game well. Years of tinkering, stretching, analys-ing and adjustment created a compact left-hander who eschews flamboyant drives outside the traditionally vulnerable off-stump corridor in favour of straight drives and precise clips off his pads as the bowler, possibly exasperated at his disinterest in flirting at wide balls, bowls too straight. It sounds odd, but Nixon makes the bowler bowl at him, and therefore to his strengths.

This discipline makes him such an awkward opponent. Kent benefited until a breakdown in contract negotiations last August forced him back to his first county after three years. On his arrival in 2000 some were astonished at his consumption of supplements – not the fact that he took them but the amount – and at a fanatical devotion to regime.

Glovemen have been considered a breed apart by their fellow players for many years and such eccentricities are accepted, indeed almost expected, but this did not prevent them from acknowledging his strengths. He is known, first and foremost as "an excellent team man", a huge compliment from his peers and one that he proved he has thoroughly earned for his efforts in the past four days.