Kent Spitfires kept alive their hopes of automatic promotion with an emphatic victory against Surrey Brown Caps in their Pro40 second division match.

Having amassed a massive 314 for six, thanks to half-centuries from Joe Denly (98) and Martin van Jaarsveld (93), the Spitfires then dismissed Surrey for a disappointing 172.

The Brown Caps reply got off to a terrible start, losing Scott Newman to the second ball of the innings, bowled by Robbie Joseph for a duck. That was soon followed by the dismissal of James Benning for five, edging the in-form Joseph to slip.

With 20 runs on the board, the Brown Caps lost their third wicket, Stewart Walters driving loosely at Amjad Khan.

Just one run later, Usman Afzaal fell in exactly the same way for seven, giving Khan his second wicket of the innings, before Mark Ramprakash and Jonathan Batty settled in.

However, with the score on 73, Ramprakash (20) drove rashly at Ryan McLaren, giving Van Jaarsveld his second catch of the innings. Batty and Matthew Spriegel shared a handy sixth-wicket stand before Batty was caught in the deep one run short of his fifty, with the score on 138.

Matt Nicholson was next to fall in what could be his last appearance for Surrey when bowled by James Tredwell for two.

Alex Tudor was soon to follow, caught by Darren Stevens at long-on for five.

Spriegel (54) went on to complete his first half-century in the competition before he, too, was bowled by Tredwell, who finished with four for 32 after seeing Pedro Collins stumped for four.

Earlier, Kent, having won the toss, lost Robert Key, the captain, for 21 in the seventh over, caught at slip off an outside edge.

But both Denly and Van Jaarsveld scored handsomely in a stand of 178 for the second wicket before the latter was beaten by a direct throw from Benning for 93 from 69 balls.

Once, Van Jaarsveld went, Denly soon followed for 98, playing on to a wide Jade Dernbach delivery.

Then Stevens and McLaren shared a quickfire stand of 44 in 21 balls before Stevens (30) tried to make room for himself to play through the off side, found the inside edge and snicked to Batty behind the stumps.

With the score on 291, McLaren (18) became the fifth wicket to fall caught at long-on off, Dernbach who finished with figures of three for 60. Soon after the 300 was brought up in the penultimate over, Matthew Walker went for 17, bowled by a Pedro Collins yorker.

Scoreboard

Kent
J L Denly b Dernbach 98
*R W T Key c Walters b Nicholson 21
M van Jaarsveld run out 93
D I Stevens c Batty b Dernbach 30
R McLaren c Spriegel b Dernbach 18
M J Walker b Collins 17
†G O Jones not out 13
J C Tredwell not out 3
Extras (lb 4, w 9, nb 8) 21
Total (6 wkts; 40 overs) 314

S J Cook, A Khan and R H Joseph did not bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-42, 2-220, 3-229, 4-273, 5-291, 6-300.

Bowling: Nicholson 8-0-62-1; Dernbach 8-0-60-3; Collins 7-0-58-1; Tudor 4-0-44-0; Spriegel 5-0-30-0; Afzaal 8-0-56-0.

Surrey
S A Newman b Joseph 0
J G E Benning c Tredwell b Joseph 5
S J Walters c Van Jaarsveld b Khan 8
U Afzaal c Tredwell b Khan 7
*M R Ramprakash c Van Jaarsveld b McLaren 20
†J N Batty c Denly b Van Jaarsveld 49
M N W Spriegel b Tredwell 54
M J Nicholson b Tredwell 2
A J Tudor c Stevens b Tredwell 5
J W Dernbach not out 6
P T Collins st Jones b Tredwell 4
Extras (lb 3, w 3, nb 6) 12
Total (31.4 overs) 172

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-9, 3-20, 4-21, 5-73, 6-138, 7-146, 8-156, 9-164.

Bowling: Joseph 6-0-34-2; Khan 5-0-32-2; McLaren 4-1-15-1; Cook 4-0-19-0; Tredwell 6.4-0-32-4; Van Jaarsveld 6-0-37-1.

Umpires: B Leadbeater and G Sharp.