{"id":13998,"date":"2026-04-26T21:23:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T20:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13998"},"modified":"2026-04-26T21:23:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T20:23:26","slug":"county-championship-worcestershire-beat-kent-by-an-innings-and-two-runs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13998","title":{"rendered":"County Championship: Worcestershire beat Kent by an innings and two runs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Worcestershire completed an innings-and-two-run demolition of Kent on the third day of their County Championship fixture at New Road.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Brett D&#8217;Oliveira&#8217;s side followed up an impressive win over Middlesex at Lord&#8217;s with another strong performance to see off a Kent side which was second-best in all departments and remains without a win after three games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After Worcestershire&#8217;s first innings ended at 447 in the first over of the day, Kent were bowled out second time round for 249. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Seventh-wicket pair Chris Benjamin (77) and Keith Dudgeon (41) added 71 but none of the top six passed 31, three of them swept away by Tom Taylor who finished with 5-56.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Worcestershire resumed on the third morning on 441-9 and added just six runs before Olly Hannon-Dalby was bowled by Matt Parkinson. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That left Kent needing to find 251 to avoid an innings defeat and effectively to bat for the best part of two days. Their hopes of doing so soon evaporated with the loss of four wickets in 17 overs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Taylor took the first three in a sizzling opening spell of 7-1-27-3. Ben Dawkins, a substitute for Ben Compton who has a dislocated finger, edged to Ethan Brookes at second slip. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sam Northeast nicked to wicketkeeper Gareth Roderick and Tawanda Muyeye was lbw playing across the line. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Zak Crawley, having been dropped on eight by Taylor at mid-on off Hannon-Dalby, collected 31 from 57 balls but then drove at a wide ball from Beyers Swanepoel and inside-edged to Roderick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Daniel Bell-Drummond (30) and Joey Evison added 36 up to lunch but the interval merely delayed Kent&#8217;s implosion. Bell-Drummond fell lbw to the second ball of the afternoon, a Hannon-Dalby in-ducker. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Taylor quickly added his fourth wicket when Evison supplied Roderick&#8217;s eighth victim of the match. Milnes edged Matthew Waite to second slip where Brookes took another fine catch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Benjamin and Dudgeon showed degrees of application and judgment that had eluded their top-order colleagues. They added 71 in 23 overs but Taylor had not finished. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He prised enough movement from a 51-overs old ball to find Dudgeon&#8217;s edge and supply Roderick with his ninth catch of the game, equalling the record for a Worcestershire &#8216;keeper.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When Swanepoel plucked out Parkinson&#8217;s off-stump, last pair Benjamin and Mikey Cohen had to find 31 to make Worcestershire bat again &#8211; and a few more to set them a challenging target. Benjamin swung D&#8217;Oliveira over mid-wicket for six but Brookes wrapped up the innings with an lbw decision against Cohen on the stroke of tea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">Report by ECB Reporters&#8217; Network, supported by Rothesay.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Worcestershire completed an innings-and-two-run demolition of Kent on the third day of their County Championship fixture at New Road. Brett D&#8217;Oliveira&#8217;s side followed up an impressive win over Middlesex at Lord&#8217;s with another strong performance to see off a Kent side which was second-best in all departments and remains without a win after three games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}