t20: Kent 217 beat Gloucestershire 181 by 36 runs
Gloucestershire completed a miserable return to Gloucester with a second heavy defeat in the Friends Provident t20.
After Sussex succeeded chasing at the King's School on Friday, Alex Gidman tried to replicate the tactic by choosing to bowl first, however he didn't reckon for a quality t20 side being able to use the excellent batting conditions better than his team could two days previously.
Kent racked up their highest-ever t20 total largely thanks to a wonderful opening stand of 87 between Rob Key and Joe Denley. The 10-an-over partnership provided a springboard for Kent to work from.
The majority of the scoring was done by the top order, allowing the rest of the batsmen to free their arms - thankfully for Gloucestershire only Azhar Mahmood succeeded.
Gloucestershire needed to go from ball one chasing almost 11-an-over to win - not beyond them on a tiny Archdeacon Meadow ground - so Kent were delighted when James Franklin cut to point for just six.
Will Portefield played nicely for his 43 from 26 balls but there weren't enough decent contributions on the Glos card. Both Alex Gidman and Hamish Marshall were bowled swinging across the line as a series of single figure scores removed any chance of a home victory.
Chris Taylor blazed his way to 67 from just 36 balls but when he holed out to deep midwicket in the penultimate over, any faint hope that Gloucestershire would pull off something truly spectacular walked off.
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