Daniel Bell-Drummond scores 271 not out and Tawanda Muyeye 179 as Kent (550-5) lead Northamptonshire (237) by 313 runs in County Championship

Daniel Bell-Drummond scored a career-best 271 not out as Kent dominated day two of their LV= Insurance County Championship match at Northamptonshire on Monday.

Opener Tawanda Muyeye scored his maiden first-class hundred but was eclipsed by Bell-Drummond who beat his previous best of 206 not out against Loughborough University at Canterbury in 2016.

Bell-Drummond’s knock is the sixth highest first-class score for Kent and he will resume in the morning just four runs short of head coach Matt Walker’s 275 not out, made against Somerset in 1996.

The only other score higher than that since the 1930s was Sean Dickson’s 318 - also against Northants - at Beckenham in 2017.

Muyeye and Bell-Drummond added 318 for the second wicket as Kent reached 550-5 by the close, a lead of 313.

On what was a tough day for a weary-looking Northamptonshire attack, Alex Russell (2-137) and Ben Sanderson (2-87) emerged from the onslaught with two wickets apiece.

Bell-Drummond set the tone, on-driving the first ball of the day back past the stumps for four, but it wasn’t long before Muyeye took centre stage.

The 22-year-old showed his promise as a schoolboy at Eastbourne where he set records for the number of runs scored (1,112) and sixes hit (56) in his first season.

Muyeye picked up where he’d left off on day one, using the long levers of his tall slender frame to showcase an elegant technique mixed with power, dismissing a short one from Sanderson to the mid-wicket boundary before sending long hops from Jack White and Alex Russell to the square leg fence.

A single to deep cover took him beyond his previous career-best of 89 against Middlesex and there were no nervous 90s either, a huge six over mid-on taking him to the brink of that maiden