Kent suffered a disastrous first morning to their 164th Canterbury Week fixture, stumbling into lunch on 66-4 against LV= County Championship visitors Northamptonshire.  

Batting first after a delayed noon start due to Northamptonshire’s home Royal London Cup clash with Somerset on Monday evening, Kent made a poor start when losing Daniel Bell-Drummond.

The former England U19 right-hander edged an Oli Stone leg-cutter low to Richard Levi at second slip to mark his 22nd birthday with a duck.

A change of ball after 25 minutes and steadily increasing cloud cover had little effect on Kent’s second-wicket pair until the hosts lost three wickets for a run in the space of 10 deliveries.

The introduction of Maurice Chambers at the Pavilion End accounted for Rob Key (16), caught behind after attempting a push-drive with a crooked bat.

Then Sam Northeast shouldered arms to the next delivery from Chambers to lose his off stump and become Kent’s second man of the morning to go without troubling the scorers.

Ben Harmison (1), the former Durham left-hander, was also trying to withdraw the bat in the next over from Mohammad Azharullah, but only succeeded in deflecting the ball onto the base of off stump via the face of his bat.

At the break, Denly had reached 38 and Darren Stevens was still with him, unbeaten on eight.

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