THIS was a match that Surrey, last year’s beaten finalists, were never in danger of losing (Hilary Weale writes). By the time they came in to bat, the crowd had woken from their sun-baked stupor and, given the noise that greeted each four, one might have thought that Surrey were the home team. But Kent simply had not raised the temperature sufficiently with the bat.

Andrew Hall’s first over for Kent, mimicking Rikki Clarke’s for Surrey, was expensive and helped the Lions to a good start that they scarcely needed, not least James Benning, who batted with a freedom that the Spitfires could only envy.

Darren Stevens’s promising start came to an abrupt end in only the second over, when he fell to Mohammed Akram, caught by Nayan Doshi.

Doshi was to become a star with the ball when he took two wickets in one over to remove Justin Kemp and Matthew Walker. Niall O’Brien became Doshi’s third victim and it was not until the seventeenth over that the crowd was treated to a six, Martin van Jaarsveld obliging to bring up his fifty.

Kent fielded well, particularly after Kemp had given them a sniff, when Dominic Thornely fell for a first-ball duck just after Alistair Brown had gone to a juggled catch by Simon Cook at long-off. In the end, though, they were defending too small a total.

SHOW-STOPPER: Benning’s disrespectful six, which bounced off the Kent committee marquee.

SHOW-DOWNER: First-innings atmosphere — Kent gave the crowd little to cheer about.