Simon Harmer spun Essex to victory in the Specsavers County Championship as Kent succumbed to his destructive bowling on Day Four.
After a declaration early on in the morning session, the bowling pack got to work on the Kent batsmen, who required 338 runs for a win at The Cloudfm County Ground. It was Harmy who made the first breakthrough in the 11th over as in-form Zak Crawley.
Daniel Bell-Drummond and Darren Stevens rallied in the evening session but Harmer struck just after the tea break to start a series of dismissals. The onslaught was concluded with time to spare as Bell-Drummond was bowled for 81 and leaving the South African with innings figures of 8-98; overall match figures of 11-170.
“You can see the batsmen are very tentative and don’t know how to play me on a fourth day pitch.
“A lot of the Kent players tried to come out and try to use their feet and when that didn’t work they tried to go back to playing in their crease.
“From that you can gauge that they didn’t trust their defence. I felt a lot of them didn’t really have a game plan.
“There appeared to be a team directive to use their feet but not all the batsmen appeared comfortable doing that. You couldn’t see the fear in their eyes but there was uncertainty.
“There were periods after lunch where I don’t feel I bowled too well but every time I got a wicket I really felt in the game.
