Kent133 for 3 (Compton 60*, Crawley 54; Parkinson 3-39) trail Lancashire 506 (Croft 155, Vilas 124, Salt 97; Qadri 6-129) by 373 runs
Half an hour later, Salt lunched on 97, an arrangement which allowed the Lancastrian statisticians some 273 miles away to prepare a mighty array of statistics on the county’s debut centurions. Alack, they went unquoted. Qadri’s second ball of the afternoon was a squalid long-hop but Salt thrashed it straight to Daniel Bell-Drummond and thus became the first of four batsmen to be dismissed by the Afghan leggie in 16 balls. Hasan Ali was the last of these and his dismissal left Parkinson facing the hat-trick delivery, a situation which often makes the bowler favourite. But Bolton’s finest squirted the thing through gully and Lancashire had 500 up before Qadri knocked out Lamb’s middle peg to complete a career-best 6 for 76.
Kent’s reply followed the pattern of the previous two days. The only change seemed to be that instead of wickets falling infrequently, they wouldn’t fall at all. Hasan’s first spell for Lancashire was more successful than his first innings and Crawley needed good judgement to let a few balls go. The Pakistani seamer has a whippy action and his left arm does so little work that a batsman might be disconcerted when the ball is delivered. But Crawley followed his checked drive off Tom Bailey in the third over with an even more conclusive stroke through mid-off when Lancashire’s new signing over-pitched. Later the opener would play a back-foot force through the covers off Danny Lamb and a brace of cuts off Luke Wood. These bowlers are not poor players; whatever Kevin Pietersen may say, they are entitled to professional careers. But they were mastered this Good Friday afternoon by a Test match cricketer.
As in the visitors’ innings, leg spin offered the greatest threat. Perhaps guided by Robinson’s late change, Vilas brought Parkinson on from the Pavilion End and Kent’s openers paid him due respects. Quite apart from his two wickets, Parkinson conceded only 39 runs off his 20 overs on this second day; like Liam Patterson-White, he is finding that the demise of spin bowling in April has been rather over-egged.
His long spell was broken only by tea and his willingness to vary his flight while maintaining good lengths to batsmen of different heights was admirable. So it was pleasing when he gained his rewards in the final hour of play when what seemed to be a top spinner defeated Crawley’s only inelegant stroke of the day and wrecked his stumps.
There was further grief for Kent when Bell-Drummond, having survived two full-throated lbw appeals from Hasan, was bowled by a lovely leg-spinner from Parkinson for 2. Four overs later, Tawanda Muyeye, having picked up Bailey for two assured leg-side fours was lbw to Parkinson when playing no shot. Lancashire thus collected their first point for bowling before Kent picked up theirs for batting. An hour earlier it had seemed a remote prospect.
And still, it had been a day for light rollers and light hearts. You might have thought it a July evening and at least one spectator called it paradise. But then, he had sat in the Frank Woolley Stand and watched Crawley hit boundaries; he knew there were afternoons when poems write themselves.
Paul Edwards is a freelance cricket writer. He has written for the Times, ESPNcricinfo, Wisden, Southport Visiter and other publications
Source: ESPN Crickinfo