Goodwin piles pressure on Kent

Forty year-old Murray Goodwin, the elder statesman of county cricket, notched the 69th first-class century of his career and his second for his new county as Glamorgan took a grip of Kent at Canterbury.

Winless Kent now face a two-day battle to save themselves from an ignominious home defeat after slumping to 73 for 4 in reply to Glamorgan's battling 378. The eighth-placed hosts lost four wickets in the final 12 overs of day two before rain and bad light finally ended their agony. They now go into day three facing a deficit of 305.

Without a win from their eight starts to date, Kent were guilty of tossing away wickets on the same pitch that allowed Glamorgan's middle order to flourish earlier in the day.

Resuming on their overnight score of 155 for 4 after a rain-ruined opening day of 55 overs, Glamorgan lost Jim Allenby in the fifth over of the day after nicking a Charlie Shreck delivery to the wicketkeeper.

Former Zimbabwe Test batsman Goodwin combined with his skipper Mark Wallace to add 105 for the sixth wicket in 33.2 overs. The stand finally came to an end when Mitch Claydon, on loan from Durham, bounced Wallace - who hooked instinctively only to pick out Ben Harmison at deep midwicket to make it 273 for 6.

Goodwin cruised to a 190-ball century with 14 fours and looked to kick on in tandem with Graham Wagg, but Wagg miscued an attempted drive against Claydon to be caught at short cover by a diving Harmison. Goodwin followed soon after for 136, driving on the up and was caught at cover to bring in last man Michael Reed.

In his 11-match first-class career thus far Reed had mustered only 38 runs, yet against a tired Kent attack he cantered to a career-best 27 before Claydon finally snared him leg before to end the innings soon after 5pm.

In fading light and with the floodlights on, Kent made a crisp start only to lose their way once opener Sam Northeast steered a delivery off the full face of the bat to second slip against Wagg. Daniel Bell-Drummond chipped a full ball from Reed into the hands of Ben Wright at square leg then Rob Key fell in near identical fashion to the bowling of Michael Hogan.

Kent's miserable hour concluded when Brendan Nash nicked a defensive push against Hogan through to the keeper to slope off with his side on 65 for 4.

Rain arrived soon after and despite an attempt to restart the game at 6.30pm, umpires Steve Garratt and Neil Mallender were forced to abandon play for the day.