Stevens and Tredwell prosper before the rain

Kent 478 for 6 lead Nottinghamshire 462 by 16 runs
Scorecard

A season's-best unbeaten 181 by Darren Stevens took Kent into a strong position before rain and lightning arrived at Tunbridge Wells to halt play with the hosts on 478 for 6.

Responding to Nottinghamshire's first-innings 462, Kent moved into a 16-run lead courtesy of a Nevill Ground sixth-wicket record stand worth 270 between Stevens and James Tredwell (115) before umpires Nigel Llong and Jeff Evans abandoned play for the day just after 5pm.

By 3pm the Kent pair had already beaten the 58-year-old ground record partnership of Dickie Mayes and Bill Murray-Wood worth 233, scored here against Sussex in 1952, and had eased Kent into their slender lead on a dry and docile pitch. In hot, humid conditions, the visiting attack struggled to find a cutting edge as pacemen Andre Adams and Darren Pattinson failed to add to their respective wicket tallies from Saturday.

Stevens, 80 overnight, scorched to his fourth hundred of the championship campaign from 105 balls and with 17 fours, then Tredwell joined him in three figures from 194 deliveries for his first ton of 2010. Stevens, strong on the drive and cut, also pulled two sixes over the ropes at mid-wicket both off the bowling of Nottinghamshire's England one-day international spinner Samit Patel.

Tredwell also took liberties against the left-armer, hitting him for two successive boundaries to sprint through the 70s towards his third career hundred. In all, Tredwell found the ropes 19 times but the partnership came to a surprise end in the 121st over when the left-hander, advancing down the pitch to drive at Nottinghamshire's debutant spinner Graeme White, clipped a return catch to the bowler.

Storm clouds and heavy showers arrived soon after to drive the players from the field for an early tea to leave former Leicestershire batsman Stevens just 19 short of the second double hundred of his career. Having already hit three championship hundreds in 2010, Stevens now has more than 700 runs to his name at an average of 89.25.