IT needed something special for Yorkshire's highest 40-over score against Kent to be upstaged and Trevor Ward duly provided it at The Mote yesterday. He was at his barnstorming best to deny the visitors their chance of pulling clear of Lancashire at the top of the AXA League table.
Devotees of Ward's entertaining batting have been somewhat starved this season. True, he scored his first Sunday century in three years early in the campaign but until a recuperative visit to the soothing surroundings of Maidstone, Ward had failed to reach 50 in the championship this year and the imminent arrival from Cambridge of Ed Smith, delayed by a broken finger, could easily have threatened his apparently impregnable place.
Maybe not now, though, after 94 in the championship and a rapid 85 yesterday against Yorkshire.
When Ward is on song it is hard to believe that he has never played one-day cricket for England. Here he launched Kent's reply to a formidable 263 for three with his customary gusto, Richard Stemp being particularly severely treated as Ward's fifty was posted in the 13th over and Kent's hundred in the 15th.
When Stemp gained a measure of revenge by having Ward expertly caught by Matthew Wood, diving forward at deep midwicket, Kent were well on their way to a victory which keeps them in touch with the top. In all, Ward faced 70 balls and hit Stemp for two sixes. His good work was maintained by Robert Key's second half-century in only three AXA innings and Carl Hooper's languid stroll towards the finishing line, which was interrupted by dropped dollies in the deep from Paul Hutchison and Bradley Parker. Kent survived to win with three balls in hand.
It did not look as if it would go their way when Darren Lehmann was opening his shoulders earlier in the day. The Australian, surprisingly, has yet to reach a hundred in the AXA League, even though he has made it to seventy on six occasions during his prolific stay with Yorkshire but the landmark looked inevitable here.
Once he had been granted an early 'life' courtesy of Dean Headley's inability to hang on to a stinging cut at point, Lehmann looked a class act in company with his captain David Byas, a second- wicket partnership of 172 in 28 overs taking Yorkshire to unprecedented Sunday heights against their hosts.
Yet a Lehmann error of judgment proved costly, his haste to reach three figures luring him to take on Graham Cowdrey at mid-off on 99 and coming a poor second to a direct hit from a man who on Saturday announced that he would retire at the end of the season, so ending, for the time being at least, the illustrious Cowdrey era at Kent.