Walters sets up Glamorgan for victory

Kent 237 and 148 for 5 v Glamorgan 423 for 9 dec
Scorecard

Glamorgan will aim to finish the County Championship campaign on a high by securing only their second win on the road this season after reducing fellow Division Two strugglers Kent to 148 for 5 in their experimental day/night match in Canterbury.

Having conceded a first innings lead of 186, Kent lost three wickets for 13 runs soon after tea to hand further initiative to Glamorgan who more or less dominated third day proceedings. Batting for a second time against a pink Kookaburra ball by 6.18pm, Kent had made a bright start under lights through teenager Daniel Bell-Drummond.

The right-hander from Millfield School drove six boundaries in an eye-catching 29 before dragging a Graham Wagg off-cutter onto his leg stump. Soon after tea, Kent's first innings top-scorer, Joe Denly (17), charged down the pitch solely in defence to Dean Cosker, only to see the ball grip and turn past the outside edge to gift Mark Wallace a regulation stumping.

Nick James then struck in successive overs of left-arm spin, trapping both Alex Blake and Darren Stevens leg before wicket. Blake, on ten, shouldered arms, then Stevens played inside the line of his sixth delivery to go without scoring.

Fifth-wicket partners Azhar Mahmood and Sam Northeast, with a 93-ball half-century, added 54 before, three overs from the close, Northeast missed a slog sweep against Cosker to go leg before for 51. Mahmood (31 not out) and night watchman Simon Cook survived to take the game into its last day when Kent will face a mammoth task to avoid their ninth defeat of the campaign.

Having resumed on their overnight score of 258 for 4 - a modest advantage of 21 runs - Glamorgan set out their stall to build an imposing lead, albeit painfully slowly, as they added only 73 in the two-hour opening session. Fifth-wicket partners Stewart Walters and Wallace limped to a stand worth 106 in 30 overs with Walters posting a painstaking 193-ball century in four-and-a-half hours.

Wallace departed soon after reaching his 66-ball half-century. Playing back in defence to an Azhar Mahmood off-cutter the left-hander played slightly across the line to fall leg before wicket and make it 301 for 5.

Wagg marched in purposefully only to last five deliveries. Undone by an Azhar Mahmood yorker in the Pakistan all-rounder's next over, the dismissal sent Glamorgan in for a 4pm lunch on 331 for 6.

Walters' six-hour stay ended in the 124th over of the innings when a miscued pull shot against left-arm seamer Adam Ball just about carried to Mahmood stooping at mid-on.

Though Walters' 147 represents his best for Glamorgan and the innings was near faultless, even he conceded it proved something of a battle on a lifeless pitch and against a pink Tiflex ball that had quickly gone soft.

"This is one of the slowest pitches I've ever played on in first-class cricket," he said. "That was a challenge in itself, but throw the pink ball and floodlights into the equation and it made for a difficult time.

"The ball lost its colour and went soft very quickly, so there's still a lot of work to be done there. It offered their bowlers nothing, but they bowled a lot straighter today, so it was more a case of grinding them down and working our way to a decent lead."

Aneurin Norman (34) fell in the next over when fencing a Matt Coles lifter to point, then Dean Cosker's belligerent cameo worth 27 ended when off-spinner Adam Riley turned one past a defensive push to clip off stump.

Alviro Petersen, the Glamorgan captain, then shook a modest third day crowd from their slumbers by declaring late in the mid-session, leaving Kent to try and survive the 45 overs remaining in the day.