The Cricketer wraps up the best of the action during day three of round five of the Vitality County Championship in 2024
Old Trafford (day three of four): Kent 261 & 71-1, Lancashire 92 & 332 (f/o) - Kent need 93 runs with nine second-innings wickets in hand
Lancashire's young batters staged a gutsy fightback on the third day of the Vitality County Championship match at Emirates Old Trafford but Kent need only 93 runs with nine wickets in hand to clinch victory on the final morning.
Keaton Jennings' team were bowled out for 332 in their second innings, thereby leaving the visitors 164 to win their first game of the season.
However, faced with what seemed a tricky chase, Ben Compton and Daniel Bell-Drummond made light of the loss of Zak Crawley for one and had steered their side to 71 for 1 at the close.
There is, therefore, only a slim chance that Lancashire might win a game after following on for the first time since 1888, when they beat Oxford University at Old Trafford
The morning session began badly for Lancashire when Tom Bruce was bowled for 12 when playing down the wrong line to Wes Agar.
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George Bell scored a half-century as Lancashire's youthful middle order fought back [Gareth Copley/Getty Images]
Wes Agar finished with match figures of 7 of 100 [Gareth Copley/Getty Images]
George Balderson and George Bell then put together a 75-run partnership for the sixth wicket that was only ended when Balderson, having made a composed 48, attempted to cut a ball from Jack Leaning and edged a catch to Bell-Drummond in the gully.
However, Balderson and Bell's stand had ensured that Lancashire avoided an innings defeat and their calm accumulation was maintained by Bell and Matty Hurst either side of lunch.
Bell reached his second fifty of the season off 114 balls when he pulled a long hop from Joe Denly to the midwicket boundary but was well caught by Harry Finch for 65 when he couldn't avoid a good ball from Agar and edged a catch wide to the keeper's right.
But the pair's seventh-wicket stand of 78 had extended their side's lead to 106 and the good work was continued by Hurst and Tom Hartley, with the former reaching his fifty off 134 balls with only one four.
Hurst and Hartley brought up their side's third 50-plus partnership of the day shortly after tea but any hopes Lancashire might set their opponents a target in excess of 200 were quickly extinguished when they lost their last three wickets for as many runs in 15 balls.
The patient Hurst was caught at slip by Bell-Drummond off Parkinson for 58, Tom Bailey was leg before to Agar for a single and then Hartley was bowled round his legs by Parkinson for 35 to leave the Kent leg-spinner with figures of 3 for 70 on his return to Old Trafford. Agar took 3 for 65 and returned match figures of 7 for 100.
Kent's pursuit of their modest target began badly when Crawley was leg before to Balderson's seventh ball of the innings for one but Compton and Bell-Drummond survived a series of confident appeals, many of them coming from Nathan Lyon, who bowled superbly and was unlucky not to enjoy at least some success.
And the turn extracted by Hartley and Lyon in the evening session suggests that Kent's pursuit might not be completely straightforward on the final morning.
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