Unbeaten partnership of 167 between centurion Ben Compton and Jack Leaning sees Kent (222 & 227-3) beat Northamptonshire (117 & 331) to start their 2023 County Championship Division 1 season with a six-wicket victory

A big unbeaten partnership between Ben Compton and Jack Leaning saw Kent earn an opening four-day game win for the first time in six years on Easter Sunday.

Opener Compton (114 not out) and Leaning (67 not out) moved the team from 60-3 to their second-innings target of 227 and a seven-wicket LV= Insurance County Championship Division 1 success against Northamptonshire at Canterbury.

Compton said: "There was a lot riding on that, especially considering - last time we played Northants here, there was a scenario on day four where it went down to the wire - so [I'm] very chuffed that we could get over the line and sort of redeem ourselves.

"It was a fantastic team performance.

"I think there were a lot of waves in this game, ebbs and flows. I thought we started really well with the ball in the first innings and Zak [Crawley] set things up beautifully for us in the first innings.

"Second innings, it was a bit of a toil. That's what happens in four-day cricket - it prolongs - and they batted really well so credit to them.

"That's the kind of wicket it was. You just had to show application [because] it wasn't a particularly fast-scoring wicket. You just had to be patient.

"Their guys that scored runs showed that.

"We're pretty chuffed. It was a pretty all-round team performance, so we're very happy with that."

It had taken only two balls for Gareth Berg to move to his half-century with the first run of the final day's play.

He and Rob Keogh brought up their 100-run partnership for Northamptonshire with a pull for two by Berg off Michael Hogan (1-93) but, with the next ball, 41-year-old Hogan bowled the Italian international, 42, for 56 with a delivery which had swung back a long way.

With Kent enjoying a much better start than