Date-stamped : 01 Sep97 - 02:08
Smith stays calm under pressure

By David Green at Portsmouth

Kent (179-4) bt Hampshire (175) by 6 wkts

AN   unbeaten  72  from Cambridge University student Ed Smith un-
derpinned Kent as they defeated Hampshire by six wickets with  14
balls  remaining to keep up their challenge for the Sunday League
title.

This has been a good year for Kent,  whose  outcricket  yesterday
was impressive, but for Hampshire it has been a long  season and,
as so often happens, they did not get the rub of the green.

Smith,  who faced 101 balls and hit five fours,  was  missed  be-
fore he had scored, Matthew Keech spilling an awkward  low chance
at deep gully,  and  he might also have been  caught  behind  and
run out before reaching 40.

Other  than  that,  though, he watched the ball  carefully,  hit-
ting the loose  one  hard,  and ran  well  in  his  first  Sunday
League in- nings. Above all, he coped well under pressure.

Kent,  who  lost  the toss, batted confidently until Trevor  Ward
was yorked by Lee Savident, but Smith  needed  steady  nerves  as
Alan Wells hit the accurate Shaun Udal to long on and Graham Cow-
drey  was stumped.

At  106  for three after 24 overs, Kent were far  from  home  and
dry but Mark Ealham helped to add 46 for the fourth wicket before
be- ing bowled through  an  ungainly  heave.  With 23 needed from
five  overs,  there was a possibility of failure but 10 runs came
from a  Simon  Renshaw over and Kent made  sure  with   straight-
driven  and  glanced boundaries from Matthew Fleming in Renshaw`s
next over.

Earlier, positive batting from Jason Laney took  Hampshire to  46
without   loss   after   10  overs,  but his dismissal, caught by
Smith behind the bowler, Ealham, from a miscued  drive,  began  a
steady  de- cline.

Matthew  Hayden  mis-hooked Fleming to square leg having taken 43
balls to make 18. Robin Smith hit five fours  in  his  35  before
play- ing on to Julian Thompson.

Udal   went  cheaply,  lbw aiming to sweep Paul Strang, and Keech
was run out by Nigel Llong`s direct hit from cover.  Giles  White
and John Stephenson both fell to attacking strokes.

Fleming,  whose  run-out  of Adrian Aymes was by the narrowest of
margins and awarded by third umpire Mervyn  Kitchen   only  after
close scrutiny, bowled  with his customary intelligence to finish
with figures of 7.2-1-14-3.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)

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