Kent Spitfires (150-8) beaten by Essex Eagles (155-6) for fifth sucessive defeat in T20 Blast

Kent’s losing streak in the T20 Blast continued on Wednesday with a four-wicket loss to Essex Eagles at Canterbury.

It’s now five succesive defeats for Spitfires, their decision to bat backfiring when, having put on 32 for the opening wicket, they were rocked by a spell of four runs for four wickets in eight balls.

Joe Denly top scored with 39 in their 150-8, Sam Cook taking a hat-trick for the away side, before Eagles chased down their target in the 19th over.

Kent’s Grant Stewart, who added 37 to give the hosts something to bowl at, said: “It’s always a challenge when you lose wickets in the powerplay but you’ve got to hand it to Cook. There was a bit of assistance out there and he bowled really well, as we’ve seen him bowl in a lot of championship games as well.

“It was a bit frustrating that we managed to get to a bit of a score and the boys who bowled in the powerplay did really well and got us in the game, so it is a little bit disappointing but that’s cricket, isn’t it?

[Joe Denly and George Linde] set it up for us to have a little bit of a crack at the end. If they’d got out in those middle overs it would have made it an even taller task for us so those boys deserve the credit as they batted really well through that difficult period and we managed to get a bit of a score.

“We bowled fairly well in patches but fell down at times as well.

“It’s a bit of a tough one to take, getting four wickets in the powerplay and come out on the losing side but it was a total where they could pace their innings quite nicely, knowing what they needed to chase”.

“It was a massive bonus for us to have Fred Klaassen back, you saw how well he bowled today for all four overs, but specifically I think he was in the top three in the