Double tons for Kent duo as Darren Stevens takes five wickets

Darren Stevens bagged five wickets to help clinch Kent’s comprehensive win over Sussex after a record-breaking display of home batting which featured double-hundreds by Jordan Cox and Jack Leaning.

Stevens, now 44, took five for 50 as the visitors lost the Bob Willis Trophy match by an innings and 25 runs with a day to spare.

Earlier, Leaning (220) and Cox (238) smashed unbeaten career-best double centuries in an unbroken club-record first-class stand worth 423 spread over 95 overs.

The hosts declared on 530 for one in Canterbury, with Sussex all out for 173 in the second innings.

At Emirates Riverside, Lancashire eased to a dominant victory over Durham, winning by an innings and 18 runs.

The Red Rose ended their first innings on 308 before Tom Bailey took three wickets to remove the home side’s top order and Liam Hurt notched his best first-class figures of four for 27.

Durham had been 49 for seven at one point and only a rally from the tail took them to 110 before Liam Livingstone removed last man Chris Rushworth.

In the other match which finished on Monday, leg-spinner Matt Critchley took a career-best six for 73 as North Group leaders Derbyshire thrashed Leicestershire by nine wickets.

Critchley claimed three wickets in the space of five deliveries as hosts Leicestershire collapsed from 104 for two to 140 for eight.

Only a defiant last-wicket stand of 52 between Harry Swindells and Chris Wright, batting with a runner, prevented Leicestershire being beaten by an innings.

At Blackfinch New Road, centurion Billy Root was the inspiration behind a stirring Glamorgan fightback after Worcestershire captain Joe Leach had plunged them into deep trouble with a deadly burst with the ball

Root, unbeaten on 53 overnight, had seen his side nosedive from 185 for two to 203 for six after Leach’s spell brought the remarkable figures of 7-5-3-4.

He went on to make 118 as Glamorgan totalled 374 all out from 116.3 overs, before Worcestershire built an overnight advantage of 179 runs with eight second-innings wickets remaining.

Sir Alastair Cook, Tom Westley, Varun Chopra, Paul Walter and Adam Wheater all scored between 33 and 46 as Essex’s batsmen failed to convert starts into half-centuries but their combined efforts set Surrey 337 to win.

Surrey’s bowlers toiled away in Chelmsford and Amar Virdi and Adam Finch were eventually rewarded with four for 85 and four for 38 respectively.

Having bowled Essex out for 261, Surrey batted out 16 evening overs, for the loss of Mark Stoneman – with a further 310 runs required from the final day.

Elsewhere, an innings of 75 from Jonny Bairstow helped push Yorkshire into a position of strength against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.

England World Cup winner Bairstow, playing his first red-ball match for his county in two years, played the major hand as the White Rose reached the close on 259 for seven, a lead of 168.

The 21-year-old responded with figures of four for 42 – his second-best return in red-ball cricket – as the home side were dismissed for 201 to leave Hampshire chasing a victory target of 158.

Meanwhile, half-centuries from Graeme Van Buuren and Ryan Higgins kept Gloucestershire hopes alive against Warwickshire.

Van Buuren (72) and Higgins (51) shared a defiant fourth-wicket stand of 110 which enabled the away team to reach 197 for six by the time bad light ended play eight overs early, a lead of 160.