Ealham puts Kent in charge over Lancashire

Kent dominated the second day's proceedings at Canterbury to build an overall lead of 211 at the halfway point of their CricInfo Championship match with Lancashire.

The hosts reached 77 for one in their second innings by the close, this after taking nine Lancashire wickets in the mid-session to dismiss the visitors for 214 and a first innings deficit of 134.

England all-rounder Mark Ealham was the man to uproot the Red Rose middle order with figures of six for 64 - his best in Championship cricket for nigh on two years.

Using sultry conditions to obtain swing and seam movement, the burly medium-pacer started to wreak havoc with his fourth ball after lunch when visiting skipper John Crawley pushed at an away-swinger to edge to David Fulton at slip.

Mark Chilton went leg before to Ben Trott for 35, then Ealham removed Andrew Flintoff and Joe Scuderi in the space of three balls as the rot continued.

Warren Hegg's stubborn stay ended when Martin Saggers found the shoulder of the bat for another Fulton slip catch and when John Wood fell to an Andrew Symonds slinger the follow-on appeared likely.

Gary Keedy and Mike Smethurst also succumbed to Ealham leaving Neil Fairbrother and last man Muthiah Muralitharan to score the 24 required to avoid following on.

They achieved that courtesy of Fairbrother's obdurate 39 and a Championship best 21 by Muralitharan, who was last out to Symonds.

In the 34 overs remaining in the day Kent lost Fulton, the country's leading run-scorer, for 17 but Ed Smith (30) and Rob Key (28) batted calmly thereafter to leave Kent in command going into the third day of four.