By Ralph Dellor at Canterbury
First day of four: Notts 184-2 v Kent
WHEN the rain finally arrived in Canterbury at 4.45pm, it came as a relief to the Kent bowlers and spectators alike. For the bowlers it brought respite from hammering away at the broad bats of Jason Gallian and Tim Robinson.
Those who had spent the day watching this attritional contest were spared further tedium as the scoring rate crept marginally over 2.5 runs per over. At least the humid atmosphere and copious rain which has fallen on this part of Kent meant that the grass was growing rapidly to provide some entertainment for spectators.
It was a greenish pitch which no doubt influenced Kent captain Steve Marsh to put Nottinghamshire in. While the opening bowlers beat the bat often enough early on, they soon lost their way to direct too much wide of the target.
In general, it was too wide to induce false strokes and so a stalemate developed. It was in keeping with the occasion that the Nottinghamshire hundred was posted in the 44th over when six wides were recorded against Fleming when a ball down the leg side reached the boundary.
Gallian, returning to the side after a groin injury which has kept him out of action for a month, easily exceeded his previous highest first-class score since joining Nottinghamshire from Lancashire during the winter.
Matthew Dowman survived tenaciously for nearly an hour before losing his off stump to a ball from McCague which did not bounce as expected. Usman Afzaal completely misjudged a ball from Fleming, padding up to be given out lbw without offering a stroke, but Gallian and Robinson stood firm to create a promising position, providing the weather allows the match to run its course.
Day 2: Kent make inroads but then drive into trouble
By Ralph Dellor at Canterbury
Second day of four: Kent (156-7) trail Nottinghamshire (309) by 153 runs
IT MIGHT have taken them the best part of a day to do so, but Kent's bowlers eventually justified their captain's decision to insert Nottinghamshire. It could also be said Kent's batsmen then confirmed that Steve Marsh had done the right thing on winning the toss by putting on a sub-standard display that has left their side with an uphill task if they are to avoid defeat.
Resuming at 184 for two, Nottinghamshire's batsmen found the attack an altogether more testing proposition than had been the case on the first day. The green-tinged pitch did not behave too differently, but the bowlers at last began to get the ball consistently in the right areas.
Not that the first dismissal of the day owed anything to the bowler. Tim Robinson drove pleasantly towards long off only to be beaten by Alan Wells's return when attempting a third run.
Jason Gallian had looked resolutely set for his first hundred as a Nottinghamshire player, having taken very nearly six hours to get into the nineties. He then shuffled in front to Jason de la Pena, who claimed his first championship wicket since August 1995 when he was making his sixth first-class appearance on this very ground.
He was then playing for Surrey after a spell with Gloucestershire and is now at Canterbury on a two-month trial. Still only 25, he got his chance through injuries and Test calls, and took it well.
He induced Graeme Archer to drive uppishly into the covers before Matthew Fleming accounted for Paul Franks and then ended a pugnacious innings from Paul Johnson. With the tail subsiding meekly, Nottinghamshire had lost eight wickets for 125 in little over a morning's play.
The Kent batsmen proceeded to make the Nottinghamshire total appear huge. A fine catch by Chris Read, diving a long way to his right to dismiss David Fulton, provided Franks with the first of his three wickets in 21 balls. Matthew Walker got one that popped to be athletically taken at short leg, and even Carl Hooper edged one behind that bounced rather more than he appeared to expect.
Trevor Ward took the attack to the bowlers, thumping nine fours in his 42-ball innings of 40 before playing a loose shot - a self-induced fate that befell a number of batsmen in the middle order.
Throughout all the mayhem remained the reassuringly sturdy figure of the 19-year-old Richard Key. Commendably light on his feet for a strapping six-footer, he coped admirably with every problem posed by the pitch and the attack.
Without his contribution, Kent would have needed many more than the single boundary which would take them to the comparative safety to be achieved by avoiding the follow-on.
Day 3: Key turns innings around
By Ralph Dellor at Canterbury
Third day of four: Notts (309 & 152-1) lead Kent (283) by 178 runs
ONLY a compulsive gambler would want to wager much money on the shape of the final day of this match, for the first three days have followed no discernible pattern.
Day one was turgid by any measure, then there was a clatter of wickets, while the third day belonged exclusively to the batsmen. Not all of them would have necessarily been expected to score runs, but the way the Kent tail kept Robert Key company was testimony to both their determination and to how docile the pitch had become.
Key displayed all his rich promise to move easily to his highest score in first-class cricket. A member of the Youth World Cup winning side, the burly opener drove through the covers delightfully and hooked with a sureness not always associated with English opening batsmen.
He dominated a stand of 76 for the eighth wicket with Ben Phillips, who faced 170 balls, scoring off only 12 of them. Nevertheless, his marathon effort was invaluable in the partnership with Key and then in one of 55 for the ninth wicket with the belligerent Martin McCague.
Both these stands were frustrating for Nottinghamshire, who lost the services of Andy Oram when he fell in his delivery stride and injured his left leg.
They later lost the services of Matthew Dowman, struck on the side of the knee by McCague. Dowman retired hurt, Usman Afzaal followed a ball down the leg side to be caught behind, and it was left to the major first-innings partners, Jason Gallian and Tim Robinson, to extend what had become an unexpectedly slender lead.
Neither of these batsmen could be described as dashers, but they will need to bat with even more on the final morning if their attack, possibly short of both Oram and Dowman, are to have sufficient time to win a match in which they have been in pole position throughout.
Day 4: Hooper's mastery knows no bounds
By Geoffrey Dean at Canterbury
WHEN Carl Hooper plays like he did yesterday, there is very little a side can do. Nottinghamshire, reduced to three fit specialist bowlers and mindful of Hooper's threat, set what was a demanding target, 334 in 58 overs. They could only watch in admiration and frustration as the Guyanese won the game virtually single-handed with a memorable 122 off 97 balls.
This was magnificent batting against defensive spin, the quality of which perhaps only Sachin Tendulkar could match. Hooper came to the crease after a quick platform had been frantically constructed - 74 for two in 10.3 overs - and by the time he was out, Kent needed only 87 off 18.3 overs. Victory was eventually achieved with 15 balls to spare.
Hooper had not come into the game with any great weight of runs behind him, having failed to reach 50 in his last six championship innings. But from very soon after his arrival, he was hitting the ball with enormous power, driving, cutting and pulling the seamers, and making lightning quick sorties down the pitch to the spinners. Even by his own lofty standards, he was playing wonderfully well, hitting three fours and a six off one Mark Bowen over and then clobbering two straight sixes off Paul Strang en route to 50 from 39 balls.
Batting conditions were certainly in his favour. The weather was more Caribbean than Canterbury, the pitch an absolute belter and there was turn only out of the rough for Strang and the part-time left-arm spinner, Usman Afzaal. Soon, both were directing the ball into the footmarks, but Hooper was equal to the challenge, giving himself room to hit inside out or skipping down the wicket to loft straight. From one such sortie, he drove a colossal straight six off Strang that came within inches of clearing the Frank Woolley Stand. Members cheered and laughed while fielders shook their heads in disbelief.
Strang now pitched ever wider of leg stump, but in successive overs, Hooper thrashed him for four more sixes over a 60-yard legside boundary with slog-sweeps or pick-ups. The busy ice-cream van took a direct hit.
The outcome was now inevitable if Hooper could just bat out the innings, but his adrenaline was running fast and he could not resist one final charge at Afzaal. Chris Read stumped him after taking the ball one-handed above his head. Soon, it became a different game as Trevor Ward, Matthew Walker and Steve Marsh all perished after trying unsuccessfully to reconcile Strang's angle of attack with the required run-rate.
Alan Wells, though, drew on his experience and savvy to reach a 76-ball fifty, his first in a month. With 43 wanted off eight overs, Martin McCague supplied some much needed brawn with 16 off one Strang over, including two sixes over long-on. In Strang's next over, Wells, sweeping skilfully, collected 15 and Kent were all but home.
Notts, having passed 300 only twice this season in the championship prior to this match, did so in each innings here. Graeme Archer continued his run of good form with another positive fifty, and Paul Franks suggested that genuine all-round status may not be far away when he equalled his career-best of 66.
Kent were without skipper Steve Marsh behind the stumps, with back spasms. But deputy David Fulton provided capable cover, pulling off a superb one-handed catch to dismiss Johnson off Ben Phillips.
Franks, the bowler, is coming on in leaps and bounds after helping England Under-19 win the World Youth Cup in the winter. He spent a fortnight at Dennis Lillee's fast bowling academy in Madras in the spring of 1997, and when he returned there for a two-day refresher this spring, Lillee pronounced himself well satisfied with his progress. Lively rather than quick, although he will put on plenty more pace in the next couple of years, Franks is a natural competitor with strong self-belief. ``He just needs to tighten up a bit,'' says cricket manager Alan Ormrod. ``You know, try to be a bit less costly.''
Yesterday, Franks was quite economical in the match context. It was the unfortunate Strang who received the most brutal punishment at the hands of his former county, being collared for 166 in 23 overs. A five-wicket haul will not be much consolation.