Gay century hands Durham convincing win

Emilio Gay hit a brilliant century as Durham coasted to a seven-wicket win over the Kent Spitfires in the Metro Bank One Day Cup at Beckenham.

Gay carried his bat to finish on 119, from 110 balls, including a six and 12 fours, alongside Colin Ackermann who was unbeaten on 38 at the end.

Earlier, Mitch Killeen bowled an outstanding opening spell to take 3 for 15 from 10 overs as Kent were held to 238 for 8. Ben Compton made 55 before Jack Leaning hit 68 from 50 to give the hosts something to defend, but it never looked like being enough and the visitors won with 10.4 to spare.

Kent chose to bat on an oppressively hot day at the New County Ground, but struggled to cope with a stifling display in the field by Durham.

Although Killeen missed a caught-and-bowled chance off Jaydn Denly off the seventh ball of the innings, he failed to cash in and was caught at mid-on by Scott Borthwick in Killen's next over for six.

Joey Evison was his next victim, caught by George Drissell at point for a duck and Chris Benjamin went in almost identical fashion in Killeen's next over for 1.

At 25 for 3 in the eighth over Kent had little choice other than to drop anchor for a while, but it might have been worse for the Spitfires, as the former Kent all-rounder Ollie Robinson fumbled the chance to run out Harry Finch when he and Compton were stranded in the middle.

They put on 60 for the fourth before Finch, who took 71 balls to make 28, was out cutting Paul Coughlin straight to Borthwick, and Compton was then bowled by Will Rhodes.

It took the hosts 41 overs to get to 150. As soon as they did Ekansh Singh hit Rhodes back over his head for six, but he tried to repeat the trick two balls later and was caught by Codi Yusuf for 45.

Mohammed Rizvi made an enterprising 17 from 14 but was bowled middle stump by Luke Robinson and Durham were into the tail.

Fred Klaassen hit Rhodes straight to Drissell for a duck but Leaning's late pyrotechnics, including a six that was dropped onto the rope in the final over, and a single taken when Borthwick dropped him off the final ball, at least made the target seem challenging.

Not for long, however. Durham got off to a rapid start, with Ollie Robinson racing to 26 before he chopped on to Fred Klaassen. Gay and Rhodes put on 98 for the second wicket before the latter was lbw to Parkinson for 32.

David Bedingham went in the same fashion for 8 but Ackermann was on three when he skied Parkinson and Ekansh couldn't take a simple catch.

By the time Gay took two from Parkinson to reach three figures any tension had evaporated and he fittingly he the winning run when he scrambled a single of Evison.