Kent Spitfires (130-9) lost to Essex Eagles (135-3) by seven wickets in T20 Blast at Chelmsford

Kent slumped to the foot of the Vitality Blast South Group after a comprehensive seven-wicket thrashing at Essex on Tuesday night.

Spitfires never recovered after being reduced to 17-4 having been inserted by the hosts, falling to their sixth defeat in seven matches.

Kent head coach Matt Walker said: "The game was lost in the first six overs being 24-4, you aren't winning too many games from that position.

"We tried to pull some punches but it is a long way back from that position. As much as we scrapped we didn't quite use our brain enough, where we should have got closer to 150 - 130 was never going to be enough.

"After those initial wickets it was always going to be a cruise for them. We keep making the same mistakes unfortunately, when the basic skills aren't good enough it is going to be hard to win games of cricket and that's where it has been all campaign really. We've made the same errors over and over again.

"There are still seven games to go and we need to win them all, starting with Somerset on Friday night.

"Eventually we will get to the stage if we don't win the next few games it will be playing for pride. But we need to keep believing as anything can happen in this competition.

"We still feel we are in this competition, it is going to take an almighty effort to do something to get us there but it has to turn around at some stage."

Kent lost Joe Denly - who hit a century in his previous T20 outing against Middlesex on Sunday - to illness with Tawanda Muyeye coming in for his debut in this format.

Australian Daniel Sams produced a snorter to have Kent's Daniel Bell-Drummond caught at first slip for a first over duck, before Muyeye (6) holed Ben Allison out to deep mid-wicket and Jordan Cox (2) tickled to a