Kent were the visitors to New Road for the Clydesdale Bank 40 Group A match. Aneesh Kapil returned to the side after playing for England U19's against South Africa in the U19 ODI series. He took the place of Alexei Kervezee who was rested as a precaution after injuring his knee in the last Championship match. Kent won the toss and elected to bat first.
Daniel Bell-Drummond, another current England U19 player made his List A debut and opened the innings for Kent. Drummond and his fellow opener 20 year old wicket-keeper Sam Billings got the home side off to a steady start against the new ball combination of Jack Shantry and more unusually Daryl Mitchell. Shantry picked up a wicket in his first spell with Billings caught at slip by Vikram Solanki for 26 off just 16 balls. Drummond played very confidently with some big shots making 42 off just 30 balls before being caught by Mitchell in Saeed Ajmal's first over.
Martin van Jaarsveld was in top form for the home side and showed all his skill and experience as a one day batsman. In a well paced innings he dominated the Worcestershire attack. Starting slowly with a 3rd wicket stand of 59 with Darren Stevens (37) he soon stepped up through the gears with a 4th wicket stand of 107 in 13 overs with Sam Northeast (30). He went on to make 124 off just 97 deliveries in an innings containing 14 boundaries which helped Kent reach a formidable 291-7 in their 40 over allocation. The innings was only ended by an excellent catch by Moeen Ali sprinting around the boundary and taking the catch on the run. It was the highest individual score for a Kent player against Worcestershire in one day competition.
Ajmal took 3-42 in his 8 over allocation and was the most economical of the Worcestershire bowlers. Shantry also took 3 wickets but was unusually expensive going for 47 runs in 5 overs.
With a large total to chase it was to going to take of the Worcestershire batsman to make a big innings. At one stage it looked like Moeen Ali was going to do just that. Opening the innings he got into his stride very quickly and passed 50 in just 31 deliveries, taking 23 runs off the 19 year old off-spinner Adam Riley in his first over. However in the very next over Moeen was tempted into one shot too many and was caught by a very grateful Riley off the bowling of Simon Cook for 55.
Despite useful contributions by Aneesh Kapil (26) and Gareth Andrew (33) Worcestershire were never able to settle against the Kent attack with a good combination of experience and youth. James Tredwell was particularly effective in taking 2-27 in 7 overs in addition to a career best 4-38 from on-loan David Balcombe. With wickets falling at regular intervals Worcestershire were always behind the required run rate and were dismissed for 205 within 35 overs to loose by 86 runs.
Kent (291-7) beat Worcestershire (205) by 86 runs.
