LIVERPOOL

(Day three of four, Kent won toss)

Lancashire (17pts) beat Kent (4) by 70 runs

Lancashire 107 (A Khan 3-10, RH Joseph 3-37)

Kent 233 (GO Jones 91, JM Kemp 56 not out, OJ Newby 4-79)

Lancashire 288 (SG Law 79, G Chapple 45, KR Brown 40, Y Arafat 4-41, A Khan 3-53)

Kent 92 (G Chapple 6-40)

Lunch

Three wickets for the 34-year-old Glen Chapple in the third, sixth and seventh overs of a magnificent opening spell has turned this game on its head. Joe Denly had already recorded a pair before Chapple's triple strike and when, eight balls before lunch, Justin Kemp carved Tom Smith to square cover, Kent were in disarray

At lunch, they needed 125 more runs and, in these conditions, Lancashire are clearly now favourites to complete an outstanding revival. Pursuing 163 after Yasir Arafat claimed the home side's remaining three wickets in 10 balls (Chapple contributing a fine 45), Kent became 10 for two when Denly, losing off stump to Ollie Newby, and Geraint Jones carried the game's tally of ducks to nine.

It was Chapple's lift that did for Jones and crucially, six overs later, for Rob Key, too. And the duck count reached ten when Darren Stevens brought a splendid diving catch from Stuart Law at second slip. Martin van Jaarsveld, whose second scoring stroke was a six pulled off Newby, had reached 19 by lunch and yet again Kent's diminishing hopes are with the South African.

His main ally is probably the sunshine that has begun to disperse the cloud cover during the interval and the fact that the ball is now 17 overs old. Once Chapple gives way, moreover, the oldest of the three remaining seamers, Newby, is only 24. But a home-grown attack has a great opportunity of pulling off an amazing victory over a side largely composed of imports.

Close

The remarkable Chapple continued to the tenth return of six or more wickets in an innings in his championship career, and his second such haul in 80 days after the 6-58 which helped beat Sussex in July, as Lancashire completed their third victory of the campaign.

An outstanding performance, which saw them come back from a first-innings deficit of 126 runs, actually lifted them one point ahead of Kent in the table and, in the course of fewer than 50 overs, they indeed climbed from eighth to fifth, though positions may change when Yorkshire and Sussex conclude their respective matches on Saturday.

Chapple bowled the first ball of Kent's innings of 92 and was unchanged from the Pavilion End for 19 overs, claiming 3-14 from nine overs before the interval and 3-26 in ten more thereafter. His second trio of scalps was in fact bagged within 45 minutes of the resumption when, in 22 balls, he ended all realistic Kent hopes by removing van Jaarsveld leg-before for 23 as the South African made the fatal error of playing back, Arafat, caught behind off an inside edge, and James Tredwell, driving at one angled across him.

Tom Smith, who spent his infancy up the road from the Aigburth ground, then undid the last two to return 3-28 and the famous victory was celebrated at 2.31pm.