Bell-Drummond keeps Kent in touch

Daniel Bell-Drummond's determined 71 ensured Kent and Glamorgan remained in the balance with two days to go at Canterbury.

Bell-Drummond battled through 68 overs to anchor Kent's reply of 205 for 4 to Glamorgan's first-innings total of 329 before falling on the stroke of tea. The second day's play was later cut short by 23 overs due to bad light and rain.

Pushing forward to Graham Wagg's left-arm seam and swing, Bell-Drummond edged to Mark Wallace behind the stumps after facing 206 balls. But in between the stoical defence, the young Kent opener produced some sparkling strokes among his 11 fours.

Bell-Drummond, who turned 21 less than a month ago, has now scored 780 Championship runs this season at an average of 39 and this innings was the seventh time he has passed fifty. But his 101 against Derbyshire in late June remains his top score and only hundred of the campaign.

Kent resumed on 1 for 0 and Rob Key dominated an opening partnership of 60 with Bell-Drummond before, on 41, edging Jim Allenby's medium pace to Wallace.

Key greeted the introduction in the 17th over of Kieran Bull, a 19-year-old offspinner from Carmarthen making his first-class debut, by shuffling down the pitch to hit his fifth ball high over mid-on for six. There were also five fours in Key's innings and Brendan Nash, who added 67 with Bell-Drummond for the third wicket, played equally positively as he reached 40 from 67 balls until, trying to cut, he chopped a short ball from seamer David Lloyd onto his stumps.

In between Key's departure and Nash's arrival at the crease, the highly rated Bull bowled tidily and well from the Nackington Road End and was rewarded just before lunch when Ben Harmison was beaten by an arm ball and adjudged lbw for 10.

Bull, overall, had figures of 1 for 34 from 14 overs and, with the accurate Allenby and the metronomic Michael Hogan, kept Kent's batsmen largely quiet.

Wagg, indeed, was the only Glamorgan bowler who failed to maintain tight control on what was an attritional day. But Darren Stevens brightened up the last half-hour of play, before bad light and then rain prevented any more cricket beyond 4.45pm, with three crunching boundaries in his unbeaten 24 from 33 balls. Sam Northeast was the other not out Kent batsman, with an obdurate 18.