For the third innings in a row the Surrey attack hit problems when it came to separating their opponents’ ninth-wicket pair. On this occasion the loss more than a day’s play over the first three meant it influenced the outcome. Matt Dennington and Ian Butler held on for twenty-nine overs, putting on a stubborn 92 in the process, to keep the Ovalites at bay and earn Kent a draw that all but hands this year’s County Championship title to Warwickshire.

A couple of hours earlier it seemed as if the visitors were cruising to their second championship double over the hop county in three seasons. Matt Walker had just passed a thousand first-class runs for the season and gone into the tea interval looking secure with an unbeaten 57 off 98 balls. But, to the first delivery after the break, the diminutive left-hander rocked back and cut Azhar Mahmood straight to Alex Tudor at second slip. Four balls later Rob Ferley lost his middle and leg stumps to the same bowler and Kent, still 42 runs away from forcing their guests to bat again, had just three wickets to play with.

Despite Dennington being missed at second slip when seven, Tudor made amends two overs later by snapping up Min Patel in the same position to increase the sense of impending doom facing the home side. But thereafter the only sniff the visitors had was when Matt Dennington, on 20, was dropped in the 56th over off the bowling of Tim Murtagh. Jonathan Batty, demonstrating a marked lack of faith in his spin option, Nayan Doshi, eventually turned to the 24-year-old for the first time in the match eight overs later; by which time it was clear Surrey’s frontline bowlers literally had nothing left to give. Batty’s kingdom for a Saqlain, or even a Salisbury, one figured.

Having helped advance the Ovalites’ first innings by a further 74 in Friday’s half-session, Alistair Brown reached fifty in the third over of the final day off 70 balls. Brown’s next vicious blow – a straight six off Loudon – took him past 1,000 championship runs against Kent. At the other end, meanwhile, Azhar was also giving it the long handle. But having been dropped at deep mid-wicket, the Pakistan all-rounder soon picked out long-off. At 397 for seven Fulton entrusted the second new ball to Butler, who promptly dismissed Brown before being clubbed through the covers for four to give Surrey maximum batting points and enough of a lead to fancy another crack at Kent’s fragile batting order.

Ed Smith, pushing forward, departed in the second over for an inglorious pair. Four overs later Alex Loudon was pinned on the crease and Jimmy Ormond made it a hat-trick of victims when he accounted for Michael Bevan, fending a short ball to slip, in the tenth over. Walker, in league with his skipper, put on a spirited 73 in 24 overs for the fourth wicket before David Fulton was caught at first slip off a backfoot push. Niall O’Brien was trapped leg before three overs later, but Azhar Mahmood’s superb post-tea spell really ought to have been the prelude to a polished Surrey victory. Not for the first time this summer, however, the killer blow was strangely lacking.

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