Mahmud six sets up Kent for three-day win over Lancashire

Hasan Mahmud claimed figures of 6 for 69 Luke Adams via Lancashire Cricket

Kent 178 (Dawkins 54, Livingstone 5-55) and 332 (Benjamin 103, Finch 83, Anderson 3-45, Balderson 3-65) beat Lancashire 87 (Dudgeon 6-21, Mahmud 3-32) and 283 (Harris 91*, Jennings 61, Mahmud 6-69) by 140 runs

Hasan Mahmud returned career-best innings and match figures on his Kent debut to inspire his side to a 140-run victory over Lancashire inside three days at Blackpool.

Needing a record-breaking 424 to win, the home side were dismissed for 283, Hasan finishing with 6 for 69 in the innings and 9 for 101 in the match.

The main Lancashire resistance came from Marcus Harris, who made 91 not out, and Keaton Jennings, who made 61 and put on 104 for the third wicket with Harris to encourage home supporters' hopes that their team would reach the highest-ever fourth-innings total to win a game.

Kent take 19 points for their third victory in four games while Lancashire collect three for their third defeat in four.

In the morning session, James Anderson and Tom Bailey took the last two Kent wickets, including that of Chris Benjamin for 103, to dismiss the visitors for 332.

Lancashire's second innings began more serenely than their first but they still lost Harry Singh, caught at slip by Ben Dawkins off Mahmud for 15, and Josh Bohannon, also taken at slip by Sam Northeast off the Bangladeshi seamer for 26.

Bohannon had levied five boundaries off loose balls in Mahmud's previous over and Lancashire's aggressive approach was also exemplified by Harris, who immediately tried and mostly failed to attack the Kent spinners, Matt Parkinson and Bertie Foreman. The home side reached lunch having lost two wickets for 89, two more runs than they had managed in their entire first innings 24 hours earlier.

For over an hour of the afternoon session, Lancashire made serene progress towards scoring nearly five times as many runs in their second innings as they had managed in their first. Both Jennings and Harris reached their fifties and the third-wicket stand had put up 104 before Kent took two wickets in three balls.

Jennings was caught down the leg side by Benjamin off Mahmud for 61 and then Ben McDermott was run out for nought when he was slow setting off for a single called by Harris and was beaten by Northeast's sharp throw to the keeper. Those dismissals left Lancashire on 162 for 4 and they had progressed to 216 without further loss at tea with Liam Livingstone unbeaten on 38 off 53 balls.

The fifth-wicket pair had added a further 17 runs in the evening session before Kent again grabbed two wickets in three balls. Having made 47, Livingstone tried to pull a short ball from Mahmud but only inside-edged the ball into his stumps. Then Joe Moores departed for a second-ball duck when he became the second batter in the innings to be strangled down the leg side, thus giving Mahmud only the fourth five-wicket return of his career.

George Balderson became Mahmud's sixth victim when he was caught for four by Harry Finch at third slip and Tom Bailey was bowled by Foreman for nought to leave Kent needing two wickets for victory.

Parkinson took his first wicket of the match when he had Tom Aspinwall leg-before for 14 and the game ended when Anderson was caught and bowled by Foreman for 2, leaving Harris nine runs short of his century.

Lancashire 4th innings Partnerships

WktRunsPlayers
1st19KK JenningsHarry Singh
2nd39KK JenningsJJ Bohannon
3rd104MS HarrisKK Jennings
4th0MS HarrisBR McDermott
5th71LS LivingstoneMS Harris
6th0MS HarrisJHA Moores
7th13MS HarrisGP Balderson
8th1MS HarrisTE Bailey
9th29MS HarrisTH Aspinwall
10th7JM AndersonMS Harris